Dirk Willem te Velde

Dr. Dirk Willem te Velde is a Principal Research Fellow and Head of the International Economic Development Group. He is the director of Supporting Economic Transformation and a Research Leader for the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme.

Dirk Willem has published widely on trade, investment, and economic transformation. He has advised country governments and parliaments in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and donor agencies such as DFID, European Commission, UN, and the World Bank. He was also Team Leader for the European Report on Development (ERD) on Combining Finance and Policies to Implement a Transformative Post-2015 Agenda.

Dirk Willem leads work on Aid for Trade, which led to a book, launched at the 4th Global Aid for Trade Review in July 2013. He has further written extensively on G20 and development (e.g. leading ODI’s G20 Development Charter before the start of the G20 DWG), bringing developing country interests and research to the attention of the G20.

Dirk Willem coordinated an influential study on the effects of the global financial crisis in 11 developing countries. The framework paper was downloaded 100,000 times and the research was featured in the Economist, Guardian, and other media. In his 13 years at ODI, he has advised donor agencies (e.g. DFID, Sida, and Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), developing country governments (e.g. Malawi, Cambodia), and multilateral bodies (e.g. World Bank, European Commission, UNCTAD, UNDESA, UNIDO, ILO, AsDB, WTO LDC group). He has written and edited several books, 30 peer-reviewed articles, and 40 book chapters related mainly to investment, trade, and growth issues. He holds a Ph.D. from Birkbeck College, University of London.