November 18th, 2011

Dean R. Hirsch is the global ambassador of World Vision International (WVI). In this role, he represents new international President and CEO Kevin Jenkins and a global partnership committed to serving the human needs of the world’s poor, especially children. Last year, WVI raised US $2.6 billion to assist about 100 million people in 98 countries through its relief, development and advocacy programmes. Hirsch, who was WVI president from 1996 through September 2009, is now charged with representing the president and the partnership on internal boards and with UN agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and major donors. A veteran of world trouble spots including Somalia and North Korea, Hirsch has worked extensively in disaster and post-conflict situations. He has helped set up famine relief in Ethiopia, AIDS prevention work in Africa and Asia, and peace building programmes in countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda and El Salvador. Prior to his appointment as WVI president in 1996, Hirsch served as chief operating officer, vice president for development and vice president for relief operations. He joined World Vision in 1976 as manager of computer operations. He holds a master of science degree from Indiana State University and a bachelor of arts and an honorary doctorate from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. He was also awarded honorary doctorates from Pepperdine University (2006), Eastern University of Pennsylvania (2001) and Myongji University in Seoul, Korea (1999).

November 11th, 2011

Ian Hopewood's extensive development experience in programming, evaluation, policy analysis and advocacy mainly in the areas of health, education, social policy, child protection and poverty reduction has been acquired through more than thirty years of field assignments in Africa, Asia, and the Arab Gulf States.  He was a UNICEF Representative on three occasions – in Senegal, Guinea and Zambia and has been actively involved in aid effectiveness and UN reform processes, including implementation of the Paris Declaration, national poverty reduction strategies, MDG plans, and results based programming approaches.  As Chief of Evaluation at UNICEF HQ (1996-2000) he lead development of evaluation policies and procedures, and commissioned and/or coordinated major evaluations.  He is committed to improving evaluation practice and organizational learning, and  bridging the gap between research and action.

November 4th, 2011

David Hursh’s teaching and research aims to improve education by analyzing current educational policies and practices and engaging in projects to transform schooling. His current educational reform projects focus on education for environmental sustainability and teaching history to young children.

During the past two summers, Hursh traveled to Kampala, Uganda, where he taught primary school students about environmental sustainability (energy) and environmental health (air and water pollution). During his most recent trip, he also visited the Millennium Village project in Ruhiira, southwest Uganda. He is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at the Earth Institute

In some of his most recent writing, Hursh describes the connection between our current environmental crises (global warming, resource depletion, and toxins in our environment), with economic and educational policies (see his chapter, “Rethinking the State: Responding to the Economic, Educational and Environmental Crises” in Critical Civic Education: A Reader). He suggests that responding to these problems will require an integrated approach transforming how we think about governance, the economy, education, and the environment. His co-authored book (with Camille Martina), Teaching Environmental Health to Children: An Interdisciplinary Approach, was just published by Springer Press.

October 28th, 2011

Ms. Magnoni is the President of EA Consultants. An international development advisor with over 15 years of international finance and development experience, she has an extensive background in financial market financing and investments, having worked on Wall Street for seven years where she worked for Goldman, Sachs, Chase and BBVA as a fixed income research strategist, covering external and local financial and currency markets in Latin America. Since 2000 she has been working in economic development programs with a strong focus in Lain America. Much of Ms. Magnoni’s recent work has had a strong focus on understanding clients, their needs and their preferences and linking these into the development of products and programs to improve access to finance, markets and social protection for low income segments. She was lead analyst and trainer on a one year activity for Pro Mujer International that aimed to strengthen and centralize its current client information and feedback loop, the organization’s client culture, product development and credit risk management process through sophisticated quantitative and qualitative techniques. She also performed extensive analysis of the market and client needs in Nicaragua, where she worked closely with Banex, a former MSME financial institution. On this project, she performed data mining exercises, market segmentation work, and a study of client satisfaction and demand. She has designed microinsurance programs for a number of institutions, networks and government agencies including REDCAMIF (the Central American Microfinance Network); INISER (Nicaragua’s largest insurer) and most recently FOSIS (A Chilean government social protection program). In 2010, she co-authored an extensive study prepared for the IDB/FOMIN on the constraints to business growth for women microentrepreneurs. Ms. Magnoni holds a Masters degree from Columbia University in International Affairs. She is fluent in Spanish, English and Italian.

October 14th, 2011

Shulamith Koenig is Founding President of PDHRE, the People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning.  This non-profit organization is working with educators, social justice groups, human rights experts, community leaders and the media to make learning about human rights as a way of life an on-going activity in all areas of learning and at all levels of society. In 2003, Koenig received the UN Prize in the field of Human Rights.

Koenig has worked tirelessly to author the United Nations Decade of Human Rights Education, and the International Year for Human Rights Learning, which have helped lead the process to strengthen democracy as a delivery system of human rights. For the last twenty years she has provided consultations and workshops with educators, civil society organizations working on economic and social justice, human rights advocates and community leaders in more than 60 countries.

John D. Shilling has spent his career promoting economic development and encouraging sustainability.  He earned his PhD in Economics from MIT in 1971, taught at Boston College, advised the Moroccan government in national planning, and worked nearly 30 years at the World Bank.  His work at the World Bank covered research into key development issues, developing national country planning models, managing country programs in North Africa and East Asia, and leading the World Bank’s efforts in the Brady Plan to assist highly indebted countries come through the debt crisis.  He laid the basis for the World Development Report program, helped Morocco reform its economy while resolving its debt problem, and authored Managing Capital Flows in East Asia (1996), which highlighted the issues that led to the Asian financial crisis in 1997.  Following the crisis, he led the Public Expenditure Review in Indonesia to help restructure the economy after the crisis.  He was the Secretary to the Policy and Operations Committees of the Managing Directors 1996-1998, and served on the Bank-Fund Coordinating Committee for financial sector reviews. 

Over his career,  Dr. Shilling has increasingly focused attention on achieving sustainable development and integrating the environment into development planning.  He headed the World Bank’s effort to create a new Environmental Strategy and launched the World Development Report on Sustainable Development for 2002/3.  He wrote the World Bank’s first evaluation of its environmental program in 2001 and was peer reviewer of the second evaluation that was completed in 2008. 

After leaving the World Bank, he has worked with a number of environmental NGOs, including World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, The Carter Center, and the Millennium Institute, where he is currently the Chairman of the Board, to promote sustainable development and protect the environment.  He consults for UN agencies (including UNCTAD, UNDP and UNEP) and the World Bank, where he recently completed an intensive study on the Infrastructure-Environment Nexus for the Group of Evaluation Units of the major Development Banks. 

September 23rd, 2011

 Prior to his work at Concern, Tom was chief economist (1988 to 1993) and assistant secretary general (1993 to 2001) with the Irish Department of Agriculture and Food.  He led a major program that involved the certification of the department as an EU Paying Agency, responsible for accounting of €2 billion annually. Tom also has held various influential roles throughout his career including Administrator in the Directorate General for Agriculture in the European Commission, Agricultural advisor to the European Commission delegation to the Ivory Coast and Malawi, Chair of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Committee of Agriculture and Chair of EuronAid.

Tom holds a degree in agricultural economics from University College Dublin and has master’s degrees in business administration and strategic management from the Catholic University of Louvain and Trinity College Dublin, respectively.  He was one of a handful of distinguished Irish people to receive honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland in 2009 and he also received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from University College Dublin.

April 22nd, 2011

April 15th, 2011

Lisa Dreier is Director of Food Security and Development Initiatives at the World Economic Forum USA in New York, where she works to strengthen public-private collaboration to improve global food sustainability. She manages the Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture initiative and its Global Agenda Council on Food Security. Her previous assignments at the Forum included managing the Global Governance Initiative; co-founding the Business Alliance Against Chronic Hunger and Humanitarian Relief initiatives; contributing to the Financing for Development initiative; and authoring/co-authoring 5 reports on the role of the private sector in various aspects of development. She previously worked in concurrent positions as Manager of the UN Millennium Project Hunger Task Force and Associate Director of the Tropical Agriculture Program at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Prior to that Lisa worked on a variety of sustainable development issues as a consultant to the North American Development Bank and the World Bank; as a staff member with the Environmental Defense Fund; as an advisor to NGOs in the U.S., South America and Asia; and as a journalist in the US and Asia. She holds an M.A. in Energy and Resources and an M.P.P. in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.A. from Bowdoin College. She has lived and worked in South America, South Asia, Africa, Europe and the USA.

February 18th, 2011

Lucie Edwards joined the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs in 1976 and retired in December 2009 as Chief Strategist and Head of its Office for Transformation. She is currently a candidate for a doctorate in Global Governance, specializing in science and environmental policy, at the University of Waterloo. Throughout her career she has specialized in planning and implementing Canadian development projects. Mrs. Edwards has also served as a consultant and adviser on rural development for a number of international organizations, notably within the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research. She served as Chair of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) from 1999 to 2003. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the African Centre for Insect Science (icipe). She is a graduate of Trent University (BA -- history and economics) and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (Masters’ in Public Administration).

February 11th, 2011

In his role as CEO, Bognar designs, implements and manages MJP’s global community and conservation portfolios. Before joining MJP, Bognar worked for both WildAid USA and WildAid Cambodia, an international wildlife conservation organization dedicated to fighting the illegal wildlife and timber trade. He worked as a field agent and international senior officer. Bognar started his international career at the United Nations (UNIDO) in Vienna, Austria in 1993. Following his work in Vienna, he spent over 10 years working as an environmental, health and safety consultant around the globe. He has a master's degree in International Law from the University of Vienna (Austria) and a bachelor's degree in Political Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. In 2001, Bognar continued his studies in Sustainable Development with a focus on conservation at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

February 4th, 2011

Anahi Ayala Iacucci graduated from SIPA in May 2010, and holds a BA in International Affairs and a Master in Human Rights from the University of Padova. Anahi has previously worked in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a human rights monitor for a joint Israeli-Palestinian NGO, in Nairobi-Kenya as a Refugee Officer, in Chiapas-Mexico as an International Observer and in Italy and the OPT as a journalist. More recently, Anahi has consulted for NGOs and international organizations on the use of the ICT4D, new technologies and crisis mapping. Clients include She previously advised UN OCHA Iraq Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit, the NGO Alliance Guinea, Internews Network in Kenya on the use of FrontlineSMS:Medic and PatientView for Health Workers in the slum of Korogocho in Nairobi, in addition to advising the local Internews office on the uses of the Ushahidi and FronlineSMS to create a network of Radio Station and independent journalist in Nairobi. Anahi is currently working on a comprehensive guide projects on the Ushahidi platform, and will be relocating soon in Kenya where she will be a ICT4D consultant for Internews Network covering Kenya, Chad, Sudan and DRC and also a Crowdsourcing and Information Specialists for the World Bank covering East Africa. In the spare time Anahi is the co-founder and volunteer Coordinator of the Standby task Force, and had worked on the Jan30Sudan Crowdmap platform, PakReport, a Ushahidi deployment to track needs related to the floods on Pakistan, the Yesi Australian crowdmap, and the U-Shahid Freedom House project to monitor elections in Egypt, the Tunisian Sidibundiz platform and has been the co-Director of the Ushahidi Chile@SIPA project since its deployment in February 2010. Anahi blogs at crisismapper.wordpress.com and can be reached at anahi@crisismappers.net