Dr Binayak Sen appointed new BIDS director general
He is recognised as a leading expert in the area of inequality, poverty, social safety nets and food security matters.
Dr Binayak Sen has officially assumed the position of the director general of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) on 1 April. Prior to that, he was the research director of the institute.
Dr Sen has replaced former director general KS Murshid.
As KS Murshid's term expired, a committee headed by former governor of the Bangladesh Bank Dr Mohammed Farashuddin was formed by the end of 2020 to appoint a new director general.
The committee interviewed several interested candidates and finally proposed the name of Dr Sen.
Dr Sen has an excellent academic record including a PhD from the Institute of the Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences – a leading school in Moscow. Dr Sen Joined the BIDS in 1986 and was made its research director in 2010.
He has more than 70 articles or book chapters in peer-reviews publication to his credit and has actively contributed to economic and development policy in Bangladesh through formal engagement as a member of various ministerial committees and commissions.
He has also worked closely with the Planning Commission to help the preparation of the 6th, 7th and 8th five year plan.
Dr Sen worked as a senior economist at the World Bank's head office from 2004-2009.
From June 1993 to December 1994, he worked as long-term consultant in the Operations Evaluation Department, and later during January-September 1995, in the Poverty and Human Resources Division, Policy Research Department of the World Bank in Washington, DC.
He worked as a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC from September 2016 to September 2018.
He is recognised as a leading expert in the area of inequality, poverty, social safety nets and food security matters.
According to the BIDS officials, Dr Sen's vision of BIDS includes strengthening BIDS' divisions, greater effort to find suitable researchers to fill some key gaps in the BIDS in demography, trade fiscal and macro-economic areas.
He believes cross-fertilisation and training will be important elements in raising quality of the BIDS' work. In addition to flagship conferences that BIDS now holds, he thinks it would be important to hold at least one international development conference every year to help generate new ideas.
