Thursday, February 4, 2010

Register 6:30 PM
Program 7:00 PM

University of Washington, Kane Hall 120
Seattle, WA 98195

Pre-event reception:
6:00 PM, University of Washington Parrington Hall Commons

Paul Collier, Professor of Economics, Oxford University; specializing in the political economy of democracy, economic growth in Africa, aid, globalization, poverty, and the economics of civil war

Kanwarjit Singh, MD, Global Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

How has democracy promotion failed the developing world? Why is violence so endemic in poor countries? What can be done to democratize and economically uplift the world’s poorest countries in a sustainable way?

The World Affairs Council presents Paul Collier, esteemed economist specializing in developing countries. Specifically, Collier researches the causes and consequences of civil war, the effects of aid, and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural-resource-rich societies. He is the author of “The Bottom Billion,” winner of the 2008 Arthur Ross Book Award and 2008 Lionel Gelber Prize.

Collier’s most recent book “Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places” is simply about power. In countries at the bottom of the world economy, the predominant route to power has been violence. Collier discusses why political violence is endemic in the bottom billion and what can be done to curtail it. His goal is to explore how we can create peaceful development for the most volatile places on earth.

Collier has worked on a wide range of macroeconomic, microeconomic and political economy topics concerned with Africa. He was the Director of the Development Research group at the World Bank for five years. He holds a Distinction Award from Oxford University, and has won the Edgar Graham Prize, for original scholarship on development in Asia and Africa.

Paul Collier is a Professor of Economics in the Oxford University Economics Department, Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies, and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College.

Moderator
Kanwarjit Singh, MD, is a physician and economist by training and currently a member of the Global Health program at the Gates Foundation in Seattle. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and after working as a clinician he moved to the biotech/ pharmaceutical industry and had a successful career at Glaxo, Amgen and Bayer and as a consultant with McKinsey and Company, covering a wide range of areas from product development and commercialization to strategic planning, portfolio management and business development. He has broad engagement with innovation in the industry and has made multiple presentations to industry groups as well as publishing in peer reviewed journals. He sits on the boards of the International Biomedical Research Alliance (the NIH- Oxford- Cambridge program), RaPID and the World Affairs Council in Seattle. He is also adjunct Assistant Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Washington and is an alumnus of St Stephen's College, Delhi (BS Physics), Oxford (MPhil Economics), MIT (MBA) and Columbia (MD).