Economist Jayati Ghosh appointed by the United Nations to a high-level advisory board

Indian development Economist Jayati Ghosh is among 20 prominent personalities ap-pointed by the United Nations to a high-level advisory board that will provide recom-mendations for the U.N. Secretary-General to respond to the current and future socio-economic challenges in the post-COVID-19 world.

Ghosh aged 65 is a Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was previously teaching Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University for nearly 35 years and has authored several books. The U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) announced that the 20 “prominent personalities, globally renowned for their intellectual leadership in economic and social fields, will form the second United Nations High-level Advisory Board (HLAB) on Economic and Social Affairs.” Over the next two years, the board will strengthen the United Nations thought leadership on sustainable development and reinforce its impact on policies at every level — from global to local, it said.

Comprising a diverse group of experts from around the world, the board will closely collaborate with UNDESA to provide guidance and focused recommendations for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to respond to current and future socio-economic challenges in the post-COVID-19 world and to advance the Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Jayati Ghosh

The first United Nations High-level Advisory Board was established in June 2018 as a key element of the efforts to support the U.N. Member States in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Over the course of the last two years, the interventions and insights of the board greatly expanded the understanding of UNDESA of some of the most burning economic and social issues shaping the world and inspired the United Nations to break new ground in policy research, the U.N. agency said in a statement.

Born in 1955, Ghosh got her M.A, M. Phil. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and joined Cambridge University for her Ph.D. Ghosh has previously held positions at Tufts University and Cambridge University, lecturing meanwhile at academic institutions throughout India. She is one of the founders of the Economic Research Foundation, New Delhi, a non-profit trust devoted to progressive economic research. She is also the Executive Secretary of the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS), a network of economists critical of the mainstream economic paradigm of neo-liberalism.

Ghosh was the principal author of the West Bengal Human Development Report which has received the United Nations Development Programme Prize for excellence in analysis. In addition to her many scholarly articles, she writes regular columns on economics and current affairs for Frontline magazine, Business Line etc. Ghosh was conferred International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize along with Professor Eve Landau in February 2011. In Spring Term 2011, she served as the first Ragnar Nurkse Visiting Professor in Development Economics at Tallinn University of Technology's Technology Governance graduate program.