Dr. Ravi Ratnayake is the Director of the Poverty
and Development Division and working as the Chief Economist of
the United Nations ESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand. He is also the Coordinator
of the Poverty Theme Group of UNESCAP and the Coordinator of regional
MDG programme. He worked as the Chief of Trade Policy Section
and then the Director of the Trade and Investment Division, and
Alternative Coordinator of Globalization Theme Group of the UNESCAP,
from 1999 to 2005. Prior to joining the United Nations in the
early 1980s, he was with the Ministry of Finance and Planning
of Sri Lanka and worked as the Research Director for the Presidential
Commission on Tariffs and Trade. He was a Senior Lecturer in economics
at the University of Auckland, New Zealand from 1991 to 1999.
He is an economist with over 28 years of experience in teaching
and research on issues related to development and international
economics and has published many refereed journal articles, books
and working papers and supervised the preparation of a large number
of publications, including the Economic and Social Survey of Asia
and the Pacific (annual) at the United Nations.
