Santosh Mehrotra is head of the Development Policy Division, Planning Commission, with the rank of Permanent Secretary to the Government of India. He has been, for the last two years, Head of the Rural Development Division and Economic Adviser for the social sectors, Planning Commission, and a lead author of India’s 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12). He is a human development economist, and his research interests have spanned industry and trade issues, the impact of macro-economic policy on health and education, the informal sector, and the economics of health and education.

He has lectured on these issues at Cambridge University, Nehru University (Delhi), University of Florence (Italy), Nankai University (Tianjin, China), and other universities and research institutes around the world. He was Regional Economic Advisor for Poverty, Regional Centre for Asia, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Bangkok (2005-06), and  chief economist of the global  Human Development Report, UNDP, New York (2002-2005). He also led Unicef’s research programme on developing countries at the Innocenti Research Centre, Florence (1999-2002). After an MA in Econ. from the New School for Social Research, New York, and Phd from Cambridge University (1985), Santosh was Associate Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1988-1991).

Since then he has been 15 years with the UN, as a policy advisor to developing country governments. His books include: African Economic Development: An Agenda for the Future (1987); India and the Soviet Union: Trade and Technology Transfer (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Development with a Human Face.Experiences in Social Achievement and Economic Growth (Oxford University Press, 1997); Le Developpement a Visage Humain (Economica, Paris, 2001); Universalizing Elementary Education in India. Uncaging the Tiger Economy (Oxford University Press, 2005); The Economics of Elementary Education in India (Sage, 2006). Two co-authored books were  published in 2007; Asian Informal Workers. Global Risks, Local Protection (Routledge, London), and Eliminating Human Poverty: Macro-economic and Social Policies for Equitable Growth (Zed, London).

Dr Mehrotra contributed to session 1a - Education and economic development: engaging the new India.