Biographical Note

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS JOMO SUNDARAM (MALAYSIA) AS ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL

ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS

The Secretary-General today announced the appointment of Jomo Kwame Sundaram of Malaysia as Assistant Secretary-General on Economic Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Mr. Jomo is currently Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and Professor in the Applied Economics Department, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.  He is Founder and Chair of IDEAs, or International Development Economics Associates.  He served on the Advisory Board of the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development (UNRISD).  He was President of the Malaysian Social Science Association (1996-2000), and also served on the Pro-tem Committee of the Asian Social Science Association (1980-1984) and the Executive Committee of the International Peace Research Association (1982-1987).  He has served on various academic and professional committees, as well as Malaysia’s National Economic Consultative Council (1989-1991).

Mr. Jomo has authored over 35 monographs, edited over 50 books and translated 11 volumes besides writing many academic papers and articles for the media.  He is on the editorial boards of several learned journals.  Some of his most recent book publications include Malaysia’s Political Economy (with E.T. Gomez), Tigers in Trouble, Rents, Rent-Seeking and Economic Development: Theory and the Asian Evidence (with Mushtaq Khan), Malaysian Eclipse:  Economic Crisis and Recovery, Globalization Versus Development: Heterodox Perspectives, Southeast Asia’s Industrialization, Ugly Malaysians?  South-South Investments Abused, Southeast Asian Paper Tigers?  Behind Miracle and Debacle, Manufacturing Competitiveness:  How Internationally Competitive National Firms And Industries Developed In East Asia, Ethnic Business?  Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia (with Brian Folk), Deforesting Malaysia:  The Political Economy of Agricultural Expansion and Commercial Logging (with others), and After the Storm:  Crisis, Recovery and Sustaining Development in East Asia.

Mr. Jomo has taught at Science University of Malaysia (USM, 1974), Harvard (1974-1975), Yale (1977), National University of Malaysia (UKM, 1977-1982), University of Malaya (since 1982), and CornellUniversity (1993).  He has also been a Visiting Fellow at CambridgeUniversity (1987-1988; 1991-1992).  He studied at the PenangFreeSchool (PFS, 1964-1966), RoyalMilitaryCollege (RMC, 1967-1970), Yale (BA, 1970-1973) and Harvard (MPA, PhD, 1973-1977).

Mr. Jomo was born in Penang, Malaysia, on 11 December 1952.  He is married with three children.

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