Rachel Gisselquist | Chair
Rachel M. Gisselquist, a political scientist, is a Senior Research Fellow with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and a member of the institute’s senior management team. She works on the politics of developing countries, with particular attention to inequality, ethnic politics, statebuilding and governance and the role of aid therein, democracy and democratization, and sub-Saharan African politics.
Edmund Terence Gomez | Presenter
The politics of affirmative action: Ethnicity, equity, and state-business relations in Malaysia
Edmund Terence Gomez is Professor of Political Economy at University of Malaya, specializing in state-market relations. He has held appointments at University of Leeds (UK) and Murdoch University (Australia), and served as Visiting Professor at Kobe University (Japan), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and University of California (San Diego). Between 2005 and 2008, he served as Research Coordinator at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ayabonga Cawe | Presenter
‘Delangokubona’ and the distribution of rents and opportunity: An exploration of tensions over race-based policies of redress and redistribution in South Africa
Ayabonga is a Johannesburg based development economist, columnist, broadcaster and activist. He is Managing Director of Xesibe Holdings (Pty) Ltd, a platform involved in advisory, facilitation and content development across a wide range of fields.Ayabonga is a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa. He is also a part-time advisor to the South African Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Ebrahim Patel. He is a Sessional Lecturer at the School of Economic and Business Sciences at Wits University and holds an M. Com (Cum Laude) in Development Theory and Policy from Wits.
Simone Schotte | Presenter
A new database on affirmative action around the world
Simone Schotte is a development economist focusing on inequality, social stratification, and labour markets research. She holds a PhD from the University of Göttingen, and between 2019-2022, she has been working at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki. Before, she worked at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and was a consultant to the World Bank. Her research has been published in journals such as World Development, Journal of Economic Inequality, Journal of Development Studies, Kyklos, International Migration Review, among others.
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