Ian Mitchell

Ian Mitchell is a senior fellow and the director of development cooperation in Europe at the Center for Global Development. He leads CGD’s work in Europe on how governments’ policies accelerate or inhibit development and poverty reduction—considering both the effectiveness of aid and policies beyond aid including trade, migration, environment, and security. He is also an associate fellow at Chatham House and at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Mitchell has expertise in the economics and developmental impact of including on trade, agriculture, and policy development in the EU and G20. He leads the annual Commitment to Development Index (CDI) and the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA). Recently, he has developed new measures of how agriculture and trade policies affect lower income countries; identified new metrics of aid effectiveness; and developed new approaches to the UK’s development policy post-Brexit.

Until 2016, Mitchell worked as an economist and senior civil servant in the UK government. At the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), he was Deputy Chief Economist and was responsible for economic analysis on EU, agricultural and environmental issues. Between 2014 and 2015, he chaired the Agricultural Markets Information System established by the G20 to mitigate global food commodity volatility. At DEFRA, Mitchell was also responsible for the UK’s economic analysis on food & resource security and animal disease risk & outbreaks.

Earlier in his career, Mitchell undertook economic analysis on education and social mobility at the UK Department for Education. He led the evaluation of higher education reform including the introduction of tuition fees and researched on social mobility in the UK using both income and broader measures of well-being. Mitchell’s career began at Ernst and Young and has also included roles at HM Treasury and the Centre for Economics and Business Research.