Uma Lele, Senior Advisor, Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank

Uma Lele, an Indian national, joined the Bank as an economist in the Development Economics Department in 1971. She assumed her current position as Senior Adviser for the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) in 2000, after having led the OED review of the World Bank Group's 1991 Forest Strategy and its Implementation, which addressed, among many other issues: deforestation, illegal logging, international trade, sustainable forest management, biodiversity, and the role of NGOs in environmentally and socio-economically sustainable forest management. Currently, she is the leader of an evaluation of the World Bank's global and regional partnership policies and programs, assessing a portfolio of over 72 global programs. She has written extensively on the issues of development and international finance. Her writings have spanned from the local to global levels issues including extensive writings on the effectiveness of international aid.

In the Bank, Ms. Lele served as Adviser in the Environmentally Sustainable Vice Presidency working actively with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Agricultural and Technology Policy and lending issues within the World Bank. From 1971 to 1990, Uma Lele held various World Bank positions including Senior Economist, Division Chief of the Development Strategy Division, and Manager of Agricultural Policy in Africa

Outside the Bank from 1991 to 1995, Ms. Lele was Graduate Research Professor at the University of Florida's Food and Resource Economics Department. She established the University's Office of International Studies and Programs and served as its first Director as well as establishing President Carter's Global Development Initiative and serving as its first director While at the University of Florida, Ms. Lele founded the GREAN (Global Research on Environmental and Agricultural Nexus) Initiative, a coalition of scientists from U.S. universities, CGIAR Centers, and developing countries' agricultural research systems to foster long term collaborative research, teaching, and technology transfer. She co-chaired the Initiative with Professor Ronnie Coffman of Cornell University from 1993 to 1997. The GREAN Initiative was active in Brazil and developed programs in the Southern Cone countries. She has also served as adviser to the CGIAR, private foundations, UN agencies, regional banks, and bilateral aid agencies.

Ms. Lele was educated at Cornell University where she received her MS and PhD in agricultural economics.

When not working or traveling Uma Lele enjoys music, growing roses, skiing and sailing.