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Prof. Dr. Vijay Kelkar is Chairman of the board of the Forum of Federations. He was the chairman of India’s Finance Commission until Jan. 31, 2010. (In India, the post of Finance Commission chairman carries the rank of a federal cabinet minister.) Dr. Kelkar has held senior positions in India’s public service, with international organizations and in the private sector. His other key posts with the government of India include that of advisor to the minister of finance, in the rank of a minister of state, from August 2002 to September, 2004; finance secretary, 1998-1999; chairman, Tariff Commission, 1997-1998; secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, 1994-1997. Internationally, Dr. Kelkar was executive director at the International Monetary Fund for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan from 1999-2002; and director & coordinator, international trade division of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, Switzerland, 1991-1994. |
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Mr. Alexander Alvaro has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Germany since 2004. A jurist, he is one of the youngest MEPs and also serves as the European Parliament’s vice-chair of the committee on budgets and a substitute member of the committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs. He served on the national board of the German Young Liberals and was their prime candidate for the EP in 2004. After training as a banker, he read law at the Universities of Bremen, Mannheim, Lausanne and Düsseldorf. He is co-author of the book, The State of Fundamental and Human Rights in the EU. |
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Dr. Samuel Assefa is Ethiopia’s former ambassador to the United States of America. He holds a PhD in political science from Princeton University and has taught at Princeton, Williams College, and Rutgers University. He has worked with institutions such as the InterAfrica Group, the Center for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights and the African initiative for a Democratic World Order. Most recently, he was a founding member of Ethiopia Past and Future, an ad hoc group composed of ambassadors from leading donor nations and members of Ethiopian civil society that seeks to promote dialogue in the aftermath of Ethiopia’s bitterly-fought 2005 elections. |
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Chair and Professor David Cameron is the Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto. He has also worked, as both a federal and a provincial public servant in Canada. In Ottawa, he was assistant secretary to the Cabinet of Canada for strategic and constitutional planning and subsequently assistant undersecretary of state, education support. In Ontario, Dr. Cameron was deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs for the Ontario government and then was appointed the Ontario representative to the government of Quebec and special advisor on constitutional reform. After his return to academic life, Dr. Cameron continued as an advisor to the government of Ontario. He earned his PhD at the London School of Economics. |
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The Right Honourable A. Kim Campbell served as the first female prime minister of Canada in1993. Prior to that she held the cabinet portfolios of Minister of State for Indian Affairs, Minister of Justice, and Minister of National Defence and Veterans' Affairs. Subsequent to being prime minister, Ms. Campbell served as Canadian consul general in Los Angeles, taught at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and chaired the Council of Women World Leaders. Ms. Campbell was president of the International Women's Forum and served as secretary general of the Club of Madrid, an organization of former presidents and prime ministers. She recently joined the board of trustees of the Ukrainian Foundation for Effective Governance and is a member of the board of the International Centre for Democratic Transition. |
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General John de Chastelain is a retired Canadian soldier and diplomat. He heads the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, which is responsible for ensuring the decommissioning of arms by paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. He was part of the negotiations leading up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1988 that brought peace to Northern Ireland. In 1993, he served as Canada's ambassador to the United States. He was promoted to the rank of general in 1989 and chief of Canada’s defence staff. His military career began in 1960 with a BA in history from Canada’s Royal Military College and a commission in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. |
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Mr. Walter Fust is the CEO and director general of the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum. He also serves as chairman of UNESCO’s international program for the development of communication, and is President of Globethics.net Geneva. As a Swiss diplomat, he was the head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Prior to that he was secretary general of the Swiss Ministry of the Interior. From 1985 to 1986 he was personal advisor to Kurt Furgler, the Minister of Public Economy. Before entering the Swiss diplomatic service in 1975 he worked in banking and public administration. He has an MA in political science from St. Gallen University. |
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Prof. Julius Ihonvbere is the national chairman of the board of trustees of the Lagos-based Institute of Corporate and Business Affairs Management. In Nigeria, he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the Niger. He was a special adviser to former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Prof. Ihonvbere is an alumnus of the University of Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University), Carleton University and the University of Toronto. He has held appointments at universities in Nigeria, Canada and the United States and worked at the Ford Foundation in the fields of governance and civil society. |
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Secretary Mr. Mukul Joshi is the secretary of India’s Inter-State Council secretariat, a division of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Before that his career with the government of Punjab included such senior posts as finance commissioner, Excise & Taxation Department; principal secretary, Industries & Commerce; and secretary, Home Affairs and Justice. Mr. Joshi played a key role in the drafting of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act in Punjab; and as part of the VAT transition programme, he dealt with consultants, state governments and the government of India. He holds a BA Hons and an MA in economics from Delhi University, as well as an MSc from the London School of Economics. |
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Prof. Dr. Wolf Linder is an associate of the Institute of Political Science, University of Berne, and member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Following his studies at the universities of Zurich and Konstanz, he taught and conducted research in political science, law and economics in Switzerland, Germany and the United States. Prof. Dr. Linder has served as an expert for international organizations on questions of governance and democratization in developing countries. He has written extensively on the subjects of democracy, political institutions and reform. |
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Georg Milbradt’s political career includes being minister-president of the federal state of Saxony and chair of Saxony’s Christian Democratic Union. He has been a member of the Bundesrat as well as the Parliament of Saxony. Among other functions, he has held posts such as minister of finance for the state of Saxony, treasurer of the City of Münster and was a member of the German parliament’s conciliation committee. Prof. Milbradt maintains an association with the faculty of economics at the University of Münster, where he earned degrees in politics and economics. |
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Prof. Johanne Poirier is a member of the Public Law Centre, at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), and an expert on constitutional and legal aspects of federal governance, intergovernmental agreements, the Supreme Court and the European Union. Ms. Poirier studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, On.,;McGill University, in Montreal, Canada; and worked as a clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada. Professor Poirier completed her graduate studies jointly at the University of Cambridge and the ULB, specializing in comparative federalism. She has published numerous works on law and intergovernmental agreements in Belgium, Canada, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. |
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Mr. Vicente Carlos y Plá Trevas consultant to the Presidency of Brazil’s Caixa Econômica Federal and former deputy head of Federative Affairs Secretariat of the Institutional Relations Secretariat, Presidency of Brazil. Mr. Trevas is a sociologist who has worked for and advised government of Brazil, at the highest levels. Mr. Trevas’s career includes working with organizations such as Brazil’s national public security and citizenship program, the Inter-American Network on Decentralization, local governments, and citizen participation in the RIAD program of the Organization of American States. He has also worked with the consultative forum of states, provinces, departments and municipalities of MERCOSUR, the South American free-trade zone. Mr. Trevas is a graduate of political studies at La Sorbonne. He began his career teaching sociology and social development and then joined the public service, working for the Administrative Development Foundation of Sao Paolo. |
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Mr. Roger Wilkins is Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, a position he has held since September 2008. Prior to that he was head of the Government and Public Sector Group Australia and New Zealand with Citi and was Citi’s global public sector leader on climate change from 2006-2008. From 1992-2006, Mr Wilkins was the director-General of The Cabinet Office in New South Wales where he played a leading role in areas of reform in administration and law, corporatization and micro-economic entities. Prior to that he held an academic position at Sydney University Law School. Mr. Wilkins was also involved in negotiating agreements on competition policy, international treaties, mutual recognition, electricity, the environment and health reform. |
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