Date: May 15, 2013
Time: 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (IST)
Venue: Amaltas Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Ruhi Saith is a senior consultant at Oxford Policy Management working on health as part of the Social Policy team and has recently been involved in setting up a satellite of the Cochrane Public Health Group, for the South Asia region. She is a Public Health and Development specialist with a strong research background on multidimensional poverty measurement, equity and the broader determinants of health, and in systematic reviews looking at the effectiveness of public health interventions. Ruhi started out as a medical doctor in India before moving to the University of Oxford to complete her PhD in Medicine. She became increasingly interested in public health policy and became a Research Officer at QEH focusing on multidimensional poverty analysis. She subsequently completed a MSc in Public Health by Distance Learning from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

She undertook several consultancy projects for UNDP and the World Bank (including on Reproductive Health) before joining the Planning Commission of the Government of India contributing towards the 11th Five Year Plan. From 2007-09 she was Head of Research Programmes at the Public Health Foundation of India before becoming at a Fellow of Jawaharlal Nehru University during which time she was also part of the WHO’s Scientific Resource Group on Equity for Health, developing countries editorial consultant for the Cochrane Public Health Review Group, consultant at the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and visiting senior scientist at the University of Oxford’s Public Health Department. Most recently, she has been working on a 3ie project undertaking a systematic review looking at the health and social impact of slum upgrading interventions, and another systematic review on the effectiveness of PPPs in the delivery of primary health services in India. She has published extensively in many books and journals.

Birte assists in coordinating and developing 3ie's Systematic Reviews Programme in London. She works with Hugh Waddington in coordinating the Reviews commissioned by 3ie and the Campbell Collaboration International Development Coordinating Group. She is a co-author for Reviews on "Water, sanitation and hygiene interventions to combat childhood diarrhoea in developing countries" and "Interventions to promote social cohesion in sub-Saharan Africa" as well as a scoping study on "Impact evaluation and interventions to address climate change".

Birte started working for 3ie after completing her MA in Political Economy of Development from University of Birmingham, UK. She also holds a BSc in Politics with Sociology from Aston University.

Hugh is an Economist by training and manages 3ie’s Systematic Reviews Programme and the Campbell Collaboration International Development Coordinating Group. Before joining 3ie, Hugh was employed as an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Fellow in the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Rwanda, where he worked on the elaboration of Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP2).

He has previously worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit, UK National Audit Office, Save the Children UK and the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department. Hugh holds an MA in Development Economics from the University of Sussex.

Howard White is the Executive Director of 3ie, co-chair of the Campbell International Development Coordinating Group, and Adjunct Professor, Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Geelong University. His previous experience includes leading the impact evaluation programme of the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group and before that, several multi-country evaluations. Other experience includes leading large projects like the World Bank published report African Poverty at the Millennium, and developing the overall direction of poverty training for 2,000 DFID staff at country offices around the world.

Howard has worked extensively on development-related issues in countries across Africa and Asia and has published over 60 papers in internationally refereed journals and several books, focusing on aid effectiveness and poverty reduction. He is Managing Editor of the Journal of Development Studies and the Journal of Development Effectiveness. He has taught at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, and continues to engage worldwide via workshops and training opportunities for policymakers on topics related to development effectiveness and impact evaluation.