Affiliations

  Appointments:

  • International Growth Center
    (LSE and Oxford University, U.K.)

    Lead Academic, Bangladesh Research Programme

    IGC country teams work closely with national researchers, the private sector, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to ensure their work meets the needs of the country. The IGC-Bangladesh programme is focused on export competitiveness and diversification, effective economic governance, public-private partnerships, infrastructure development, efficiency of marketing of agricultural and food products, and building links between top-down strategies for pro-poor growth and household-level interventions.  Dr. Mobarak has overseen many of the program’s projects, including but not limited to projects on seasonal migration, climate change, and improved health technologies.
  • Urban Services Initiative (MIT Poverty Action Lab – J-PAL)
      Co-Director, with Esther Duflo and Sebastian Galiani
    The Urban Services Initiative (USI), managed by J-PAL and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will identify and evaluate innovative solutions to the problem of inadequate access to urban water, sanitation and hygiene services in cities in Asia and Africa, especially in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poor people.  Its main objectives include (1) Spurring innovative projects that can address the challenge of delivering urban public services, and use randomized evaluations (REs) to test the effectiveness of those innovations in the field; (2) Forming strong multidisciplinary research teams and building capacity for researchers based in developing countries to design and conduct REs; and (3) Diffusing knowledge gained to policy makers and donors at local, national, and international levels, so that effective solutions can be promoted and spread. To date, USI has allocated over a million dollars in research funding, and have hosted three matchmaking conferences in Sri Lanka, South Africa and Nepal to mobilize new collaborative evaluations between researchers and implementing agences.  Mobarak has also mentored three post-docs who are Asian and African nationals.

  Other Appointments:

  • National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA, USA