Before June 2006 he served as the Senior Economist in USAID’s Policy Office. As senior policy advisor for Economic Growth, he has led policy and strategy development and “goal reviews” for economic growth, including participation in the core group for USAID’s forthcoming Economic Growth Strategy. In the area of Agency strategic planning, he led the review and update of USAID’s strategic plan in CY2000, and was primary author of the January 2004 White Paper (“US Foreign Aid: Meeting the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century”). As background for both efforts, he wrote “Development, Foreign Aid, Strategic Planning, and GPRA”, presented at an international conference in July 2004. He has provided TDY assistance for strategy development in Macedonia and Albania. In the policy area, he wrote the “Policy Framework for Bilateral Foreign Aid”, a policy paper based on the White Paper and issued in January 2006. He has written several papers on poverty, most recently “Development, Poverty Reduction and the MDGs: Pitfalls in Strategic Planning and Management” (2005). He has also written in the general area of foreign aid, development, and U.S. national interests, including “The Development Record and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid”, published in 1999.

Prior to joining USAID’s Policy Office he served as USAID’s Chief Economist for Asia/Near East for nearly a decade, focusing on structural adjustment, trade and investment, poverty, graduation, and country performance indicators. He made numerous TDYs, working mainly on major USAID programs in the Philippines, Pakistan, and Egypt, and secondarily on other Asian countries and issues. He began his USAID career in PPC working on basic human needs, strategic budgeting, international development targets, food aid, and non-project assistance, with TDYs to Tanzania, Kenya, Egypt, and Jamaica. Before joining USAID he worked as an International Economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

Dr. Crosswell earned an MA and Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University, concentrating in international trade and development.

Dr. Dahlman has conducted extensive analytical work in developing countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, India, Pakistan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Dr. Dahlman’s publications include China and the Knowledge Economy: Seizing the 21st Century, Korea and the Knowledge-Based Economy: Making the Transition, and India and the Knowledge Economy; Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities. Dr. Dahlman earned a B.A. in international relations from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.

Thomas Davenport is a Senior Manager at the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), a joint service of the World Bank, IFC and MIGA. FIAS advises member country governments on how to attract and retain foreign direct investment and maximize its impact on poverty reduction. Prior to joining FIAS in early 2004, he was a Manager in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Department, responsible for the oversight of the IFC’s Project Development Facilities (PDF). Before that he established and was the first General Manager of the Mekong PDF operating in Indochina and earlier ran an IFC Facility operation in West Africa.

Before joining IFC, Tom worked on a number of private sector advisory assignments in developing countries, ranging from privatization to export development and competitiveness. He has also been with the Canadian Foreign Service and has served as an export consultant to a number of Canadian companies in the high tech sector.

Thomas Davenport received a MSc. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics in 1984.

Paul Davis is a development economist who has spent the past two decades analyzing and addressing economic policy and institutional development conditions and constraints in emerging market settings. During that time he has served as a program economist and program/project manager with USAID, focusing on the design and management of program and project support strategies/initiatives in the areas of fiscal and monetary reform, financial market regulation and development, pension reform, labor reform, privatization, accounting reform, and trade and investment legal/regulatory and institutional reform.

Mr. Davis has analyzed economic reform priorities and developed comprehensive technical collaboration programs designed to promote the adoption and sustainable implementation of priority macroeconomic and structural reforms in a variety of challenging emerging market and transitional economy settings. During his career he has worked in Honduras, the Philippines, Vietnam, the Central Asian Republics, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Colombia. He currently serves as Mission Economist and Program Officer with USAID/Azerbaijan. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University in 1986.

Following a stint as Administrator for the World Bank’s centrally funded Research Program, Dennis moved to the Latin American operations complex where he was responsible for programs in Bolivia, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. In 1994 he accepted the first of a series of overseas assignments with the World Bank and the IMF. Over the course of 12 years he was Director, Resident Staff and then Country Director in Jakarta, Indonesia (5 years), Senior Representative for the IMF in Hanoi, Vietnam (2 years) and Country Director for the five Central Asian Republics (4 years).

At the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Dod was chief of the International Finance Division’s Emerging Markets Section, from 1977-87, and assisted in developing stabilization and financial-sector adjustment programs for Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. In the area of U.S. bank supervision, he worked closely with federal bank examiners on regulatory assessments and provisions relating to country risks and non-performing international loans; he also worked as an economic consultant at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. He studied for a PhD in Economics at Stanford University.