Jayati Ghosh will discuss access to vaccines and the limiting role of intellectual property rights and pharma monopolies. 

Jayati Ghosh taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for nearly 35 years. She is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. She has authored and/or edited 20 books. Recent books include The making of a catastrophe: Covid-19 and the Indian economy, Aleph Books; When governments fail: Covid-19 and the economy, Tulika Books 2021; Women workers in the informal economy, Routledge 2021; Never Done and Poorly Paid: Women’s Work in Globalising India, Women Unlimited, New Delhi 2009; co-edited Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development, 2014. She has published more than 200 scholarly articles and also writes regularly for popular media. She has received several prizes for her research, including the 2015 Adisheshaiah Award for distinguished contributions to the social sciences in India; the ILO’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2011; the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010, Italy. She has advised governments in India and other countries, including as Chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh Commission on Farmers’ Welfare in 2004, and Member of the National Knowledge Commission of India (2005-09). She is the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates (www.networkideas.org), an international network of heterodox development economists. She has consulted for many international organisations and is member of several international boards and commissions, including the UN High Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, the Commission on Global Economic Transformation of INET, and the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All.

Kevin Watkins is currently Visting Professor of Practice at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa at LSE, having recently stepped down as CEO of Save the Children UK. He was previously Director of the Overseas Development Institute in London, and Director of UN's Human Development Report Office and Global Education Monitoring Report, where he authored several flagship reports. Prior to working in the UN, he was Head of Research at Oxfam. 

James Putzel is Professor of Development Studies and served as the Director of the Crisis States Research Centre. He headed the Centre's research programme on Crisis States, which was funded by the Department for International Development of the UK government. 

This talk is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice, 2021/22, series, a high-profile lecture series run by the Department of International Development at LSE and organised by Professor James Putzel and Professor in Practice Duncan Green.

The Department of International Development promotes interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. 

Twitter Hashtag for this series: #CuttingEdge2021