The Allianz Knowledge Site's Who's Who features people and organizations that make a difference in the areas of climate change, microfinance, and demographic change.
Christina Barrineau
Who’s that?
Managing director of the Financial Access Initiative
What does she do?
Barrineau is managing director of the Financial Access Initiative, a joint project of Harvard, Yale and New York University that focuses research about improving access to financial services to the world’s poor.
Prior to this position, Barrineau was senior technical advisor for the United Nations International Year of Microcredit in 2005, a pivotal year for generating awareness internationally about the potential of microfinance. With the collaboration of several UN agencies and high-profile sponsors and partners, the Year helped transform microfinance from “something cute” (in the public eye) into something discussed seriously in corporate boardrooms and international meetings of the International Monetary Fund.
What does she say?
Asit K. Biswas
Who’s that?
President of the Third World Center for Water Management
What does he do?
Asit K. Biswas was born in India and lives in Mexico where he heads the Third World Institute for Water Management, an independent think tank focusing on knowledge generation, synthesis, application, and dissemination.
Biswas is the founder of the "International Journal of Water Resources Development," and has been its editor-in-chief for the past 21 years. He written or edited 64 books and published over 600 scientific and technical papers.
Biswas studied at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. He has lectured at Queen´s University in Kingston, Canada, before joining the Canadian Ministry of Environment. He later helped establish the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya and acted as senior scientific advisor to the executive director of UNEP and chaired the Middle East Water Commission.
Among his numerous prizes are the two highest awards of the International Water Resources Association (Crystal Drop and Millennium Award), Walter Huber Award of the American Society of Civil Engineering, and Honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology of the University of Lund in Sweden.
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Susy Cheston
Who’s that?
Senior vice-president for policy at Opportunity International
What does she do?
Cheston is a widely consulted expert on microfinance, women’s empowerment, and the reduction of HIV/AIDS. Apart from several published articles about microfinance and interviews on national television and radio, she testified before U.S. Congress in September 2005, urging them to continue to support microfinance as a key development tool.
Cheston joined the U.S.-based Opportunity International in 1991 as a field director in El Salvador. In 1993, she became executive director of the Women’s Opportunity Fund, where she helped develop the “Trust Group” microcredit lending model, which now reaches hundreds of thousands of women in the developing world.
What does she say?
Daryl L. Collins
Who’s that?
Director of The Financial Diaries project
What does she do?
Continuing the work begun by Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven, who had examined the financial lives of families in India and Bangladesh, Collins began in 2003 to track how 180 poor households in South Africa managed their money. Collins’s field data from 2003-2005 makes up the biggest set of data in "The Financial Diaries,” a project that seeks to understand the financial services that poor households use and still need.
Collins is working together with Rutherford and Ruthven, along with Jonathan Morduch and David Hulme, to produce "The Portfolios of the Poor," a book that will bring together the Financial Diaries findings from South Africa, India and Bangladesh. It is expected to be published later this year. Collins is currently pursuing doctoral work at New York University.
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Susan Davis
Who's that?
Chair of the Grameen Foundation and director of the Ashoka Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship
What does she do?
Davis chairs the board of Grameen Foundation, an internationally focused spin-off of Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank that provides around 3.6 million families in 22 countries with microfinancial services and technology. At Ashoka, Davis has the task of identifying innovative social entrepreneurs to invite into the organization’s growing global network of social entrepreneurs.
Davis is also a senior advisor to the general director of the International Labor Organization, and serves on the boards of BRAC USA, Project Enterprise, Aid to Artisans, Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund, and African Women’s Development Fund USA. Previously, she worked for some of the world’s leading development organizations, including World Women’s Banking and the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh.
What does she say?
Yvo de Boer
Who’s that?
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
What does he do?
Yvo de Boer has been actively involved in climate change policies since 1994. The Dutch politician helped shape position of the European Union in the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol and worked at various UN organizations throughout his career. In August 2006, de Boer, the former director for international affairs of the Dutch environment ministry, was appointed executive secretary of the UNFCCC.
Since his inauguration, the 53-year-old has tried to convince industrialized nations to curb greenhouse gas emissions more vigorously. Environmental groups, however, criticized de Boer for suggesting that rich nations should not be obligated to cut emissions if they paid developing countries to do so on their behalf.
