Somik Vinay Lall is the World Bank’s Global Lead on Territorial Development Solutions and its Lead Economist for Urban Development in Africa. He heads a World Bank global research program on urbanization and spatial development and founded the Bank’s urbanization reviews program. He is an expert on development policy related to urban and territorial competitiveness, agglomeration and clusters, infrastructure, and impact evaluation, with more than 18 years’ experience in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He was a core member of the team that wrote the World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography; a senior economic counselor to the Indian prime minister’s National Transport Development Policy Committee; and the lead author of the World Bank’s flagship report on urbanization Planning, Connecting, and Financing Cities Now. His work focuses on “place-shaping policies” around cities, clusters, and corridors and the functioning of factor and product markets. He has published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals.