For many women in South Asia, accessing economic opportunities remains a challenge despite decades of economic development in the region. Deeply rooted social norms account for a large share of these gaps.
Join our LIVE expert panel discussion and a short presentation on the main findings of the South Asia Economic Focus 2022: Reshaping Social Norms about Gender: A New Way Forward.
Submit your questions to sarchiefeconomistoffice@worldbank.org before the event and be part of the conversation.
Hans Timmer is the World Bank's Chief Economist for South Asia. He assumed this position on January 1, 2019. Before that, he was the Chief Economist for the Europe and Central Asia region of the World Bank. Under his management in ECA, a series of regional reports, most recently, Toward a New Social Contract and Critical Connections, and a series of regional economic updates are produced. Prior to these positions, Timmer was Director of the World Bank's Development Prospects Group. Timmer is a quantitative international macroeconomist and econometrician with 30 years of management experience in leading teams of modelers, forecasters, and policy analysts. His experience ranges from long-term structural analyses of the economic impact of environmental policies, trade policies, and tax reforms, to short-term monitoring of the business cycle and analysis of monetary and fiscal policies.
Senator Dr. Sania Nishtar is a member of the Senate (Upper house) of Pakistan. From November 2018 to April 2022 she served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety with the rank of Federal Minister, where she spearheaded Pakistan’s flagship “Ehsaas” (compassion) program. She currently chairs the Benazir Income Support Program. Sania Nishtar is former co-chair of World Health Organization’s High-Level Commission on Non-communicable diseases. In 2017 she was one of the 3 elected finalists for the position of WHO Director General. She has led numerous international initiatives and is widely published and decorated.
Sonalde Desai is a Professor at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) with a joint appointment as Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. She is an internationally known demographer whose work deals primarily with human development in developing countries with a particular focus on gender and class inequalities. While much of her research focuses on South Asia, she has also engaged in comparative studies across Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. At present, Sonalde Desai is leading the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), India’s only nationally representative panel study with interviews in 2004–05 and 2011–12. The next wave of IHDS is planned for 2022-23. The IHDS is used by over 11,000 users worldwide and has led to over 1000 papers and dissertations.
Dr. Rubana Huq is the Vice Chancellor of the Asian University for Women. Dr. Huq who earned wide prominence as the first female president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers’ and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA), is a published poet who earned her PhD in Literature from India’s Jadavpur University. Dr. Huq has been a trustee of AUW and, was more recently, elected as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees. She was named as one of BBC’s top 100 women in the world in 2013 and again in 2014. Huq won the SAARC Literary Award for her poems in 2006. She is the former CEO of TV Southasia, a collaborative platform of South Asian electronic media based in Kolkata.
Maurizio Bussolo, lead economist in the Chief Economist Office for South Asia, has been working on quantitative analyses of economic policy and development with research interests spanning both micro and macroeconomic topics. At the World Bank, he also worked in the Chief Economist Office for Europe and Central Asia and in the Development Economics Prospects Group; and he led operational teams in the aftermath of the 2008-09 crisis negotiating with Latin American and Caribbean governments the implementation of reforms to shield the most vulnerable. He has extensively published in peer-reviewed journals on trade, growth, poverty and income distribution.
EXPERT PANEL DISCUSSION |
Moderator | Hans Timmer, Chief Economist, South Asia Region, World Bank
Introduction to the discussion: “Reshaping Social Norms about Gender: A New Way Forward” A summary of the main findings of the South Asia Economic Focus 2022 Presenter | Maurizio Bussolo, Lead Economist, South Asia Region, World Bank
Panelists |
|
