About

Welcome – I am a Professor at the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I have also been the Academic Director of the School.

I am currently on secondment to the UK Government as Chief Economist of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), though spending some time, and some teaching, at the LSE. I am currently a member of the Steering Committee for United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Global Synthesis Coalition. I am also the Chairperson for FCDO-BII Evaluations and Learning Steering Group for the British International Investment (formerly CDC).

I have been an Affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, and an Associate with the Building State Capability Program at Harvard University’s Center for International Development (CID). I have been a co-leader of Reducing State Fragilities Initiative at the International Growth Centre, an Affiliated Researcher with the Political Economy group of Yale University’s Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE), an Affiliated Researcher with Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD). I have also been a founder board member of Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP).

Earlier, I had served as Research and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre at the London School of Economics in partnership with the Oxford University, where I have been responsible for commissioning new research and for connecting researchers with policymakers in various parts of the world, especially in Africa and Asia. I have also been a Visiting Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. I have co-chaired LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development. I have spent more than 15 years in the policy world as a practitioner, policymaker and policy advocate, and more than 15 years in the research world as an instructor, researcher and as a catalyser of research. My areas of interest include economic growth, development, political economy, state capacity, and social protection.