Welcome to the WBS Distinguished Lecture Series. The series brings South Africa’s high profile leaders to one of the world’s leading business schools to share their insights into current business issues and strategies. Further, the programme builds and strengthens the relationship between WBS and leading corporations, media and government agencies.

We are proud to welcome:
Rogier van den Brink
Senior Country Economist for South Africa

Rogier will talk about “Accountability in Public Services: From Making Cars to Making Services Work for the Poor.”

Rogier van den Brink has a Masters in Sociology from the Agricultural University in Wageningen, the Netherlands, and a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has research and development experience in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

He did fieldwork in Cameroon, studying their variety of the stokvels (rotating savings and credit associations), assisted the government of Burkina Faso with development statistics and agricultural extension, and worked as a Research Associate for Cornell University analyzing the impact of structural adjustment on the poor in Tanzania, before joining the World Bank in 1992. There, he worked on agriculture and land reform in South Africa (1992-4), was Country Economist for Lesotho (1994-6), Special Assistant to the Vice Presidents for Africa (1996-8), and Deputy Resident Representative in Zimbabwe (1998-2002).

He moved to South Africa in 2002 at the request of the government to assist with land reform. He is currently the Senior Country Economist for South Africa, but will become Lead Economist in the East Asia Region, starting in September 2008. His article "The Economics of Cain and Abel" about the archetypical conflict between herders and farmers the world over won the Dudley Seers Award for best written article in the Journal of Development Studies in 1994. He is married to Natasha Mukherjee and has three kids: Amelie Rayguedesama, Raphael Philip, and Daniela Nyasha. His hobbies are fly-fishing and playing in the rock band Mid Life.