Biography

Sebastian Silva Leander’s is a Senior Consultant with OPM and a research associate with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). His main research is in poverty analysis and social protection, with special interest in Fragile States. For two years, until the end of 2010, he worked as a strategic planning advisor to the Deputy Special Representative for the United Nations’ Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he advised on issues of transition and peacebuilding, and coordinated the elaboration of a peace consolidation programme. In 2008 he was Coordinator for the Afghan National Development Strategy on behalf of UNDP. From April 2005 he headed the Donor Coordination group on social protection, which worked towards the establishment of a Sector Wide Approach for Social Protection and drafted the national strategy to transition from emergency operations to a national social protection system in Rwanda. During this period he was also lead author of Rwanda’s 2007 Human Development Report. Sebastian has published on violence and conflict, equity, the measurement of freedom and agency, and democracy. He holds a PhD in Economics from St Anthony’s College, Oxford, and did a Postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Sebastian is fluent in Swedish, French, Spanish and English.