| Robert Picciotto |
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| Thursday, 19 March 2009 03:45 |
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Areas of research and policy interest
Educational and Professional Background Robert (“Bob”) Picciotto’s career in development spans over 40 years. He served as Vice President for Corporate Planning and Budgeting at the World Bank and, for ten years, as Director-General, Evaluation reporting directly to the executive directors. He holds an aeronautical engineering degree from a Ecole Nationale Superieure de l’Aeronautique (a French “grande ecole”) and a graduate degree in development economics and public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School (Princeton University). He started his career in development at the International Finance Corporation where he worked as development bank specialist. In the World Bank, his operational assignments included agricultural economist in the New Delhi office, division chief of agricultural industries, assistant director for agriculture and rural development, and Project Director in three of the World Bank’s Regions.
Contributions to research and policy In World Bank operations, Robert Picciotto pioneered new approaches to development lending in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa. As a corporate manager, he designed and implemented a comprehensive reform of corporate planning and budget policies under President Barber Conable. As Director General, Evaluation he broadened the oversight function of independent evaluation to address country strategies and operational policies in the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Insurance Guarantee Agency. Since his retirement from the World Bank Group in 2002, Robert Picciotto has advised the Council of Europe Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the International Fund for Agriculture Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Norway's Agency for Development, the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom and the International Development Committee of the House of Commons. He holds the position of Visiting Professor at Kings College, London, acts as trustee of the Oxford Policy Institute and sits on the council of the United Kingdom Evaluation Society and on the board of the European Evaluation Society. He also serves as a member of the Independent Advisory Committee on Development Impact which reports to the UK Secretary of State for International Development.
Selected publications: Robert Picciotto, Funmi Olonisakin, Michael Clarke with a foreword by Sir Lawrence Freedman, Global Development and Human Security, Towards a Policy Agenda, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden, Global Development Study no. 3, 2005. Robert Picciotto, Charles Alao, Eka Ikpe, Martin Kimani and Roger Slade, Striking a New Balance, Donor Policy Coherence and Development Cooperation in Difficult Environments, Background Paper for the Senior Forum on Development Effectiveness in Fragile States, OECD, January 2005. Robert Picciotto and Rachel Weaving, eds., Security and Development: Investing in Peace and Prosperity, London, Taylor and Francis, 2005. Robert Picciotto, Fostering Development in a Global Economy, A Whole of Government Perspective, Paris, OECD, 2005 (Introduction and Chapter 5) “The Value of Evaluation Standards: A Comparative Assessment”, Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Evaluation, Number 3, October, 2005, ISSN 1556-8180 “The Evaluation of Policy Coherence for Development”, Evaluation, Sage Publications, Volume 11, Number 3, July 2005 Robert Picciotto and Rachel Weaving, eds., Impact of Rich Countries’ Policies on Poor Countries: Towards a Level Playing Field in Development Cooperation.New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2004. “The Logic of Partnership”. In Evaluation and Development: The Partnership Dimension. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2004. “Towards a New Policy Framework for the Enlarged Europe: Investing in Growth and Modernization, Journal of European Integration, London, Carfax Publishing, December 2004. “Facing Reality after Cancun: Continued Gridlock or Global Prosperity, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Washington D.C., Winter/Spring 2004. “Evaluation and Accounting Standards”, Public Money and Management, Blackwell, Volume 24, Number 2, April 2004 “L’Italia e i poveri del mondo: e tempo di ricominciare, Rassegna Italiana Valutazione, FrancoAngeli, Milano. December 2003. “Scaling Up: A Development Strategy for the New Millennium”. Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, Paris, 2003. “The Logic of Mainstreaming”, Evaluation, Volume 8, Number 3, Sage Publications, 2002. Development Cooperation and the Monterrey Challenge, Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002. Nagy Hanna and Robert Picciotto, eds. Making Development Work. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002. Robert Picciotto, Warren van Wicklin, and Edward Rice, eds., Involuntary Resettlement. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001. Osvaldo N. Feinstein and Robert Picciotto, eds. Evaluation and Poverty Reduction. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001.
Robert Picciotto and Eduardo Wiesner, eds., Evaluation and Development: The Partnership Dimension. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998. “Evaluation in the World Bank: Antecedents, Instruments and Concepts”. In E. Chelimsky and W. Shadish, eds., Evaluation for the 21st Century. London and Thousand Oaks, California, Sage Publications, 1997. Robert Picciotto and Ray Rist, eds., Evaluation and Development. Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank, Washington, DC, 1995. |
