Person:
Dabalen, Andrew
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty,
Inequality,
Economics of education,
Development economics,
Labor economics
Degrees
Departments
Chief Economist, Africa, World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Andrew Dabalen is the World Bank’s Africa Region Chief Economist since July 1, 2022. The Chief Economist is responsible for providing guidance on strategic priorities and the technical quality of economic analysis in the region, as well as for developing major regional economic studies, among other roles.
He has held various positions including Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region, Lead Economist and Practice Manager for Poverty and Equity in Africa and most recently, Practice Manager for Poverty and Equity in the South Asia Region. His research and scholarly publications focused on poverty and social impact analysis, inequality of opportunity, program evaluation, risk and vulnerability, labor markets, and conflict and welfare outcomes. He has co-authored regional reports on equality of opportunity for children in Africa, vulnerability and resilience in the Sahel, and poverty in a rising Africa.
He holds a master’s degree in International Development from University of California - Davis, and a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from University of California - Berkeley.
Publication Search Results
1 - 2 of 2
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Publication
Vulnerability to Malnutrition in the West African Sahel
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-01)This study estimates marginal increase in malnutrition for children ages 1-3 years from exposure to an extreme shock in the West African Sahel. The study uses knowledge of a child's birth and high resolution spatial and temporal distribution of shocks, calculated from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and satellite-based measures of rainfall and temperature to link a child to the shock experienced in-utero. The study finds that while around 20 percent of the children in the sample are stunted or underweight, more than 30 percent of the children in the sample are highly vulnerable to either form of malnutrition. -
Publication
Data Deprivation: Another Deprivation to End
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04)The Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence of extreme poverty from its 1990 level will be achieved in 2015, and the international development community is now moving to a new goal of “ending extreme poverty.” However, the data needed to monitor progress remain severely limited. During the 10 year period between 2002 and 2011, as many as 57 countries have zero or only one poverty estimate. This paper refers to such lack of poverty data as “data deprivation,” because the poor are often socially marginalized and voiceless, and the collection of objective and quantitative data is crucial in locating them and formulating policy to help them exit extreme deprivation. This paper studies the extent of data deprivation and proposes targets for ending data deprivation by 2030—the year by when the international community aims to end extreme poverty. According to the analysis in this paper, this target is ambitious but possible, and achieving it is necessary to be able to declare the end of extreme poverty with confidence.