The recording of this webinar is available here

Neil McCulloch gave a presentation of the main ideas in his new book "Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet"  on Wednesday 12 April from 2pm-3.30pm BST (GMT+1).  Dr. Mashekwa Maboshe, a researcher at the University of Zambia, provided some initial short comments, after which the floor was open for questions and discussion. 

The Speaker: Dr Neil McCulloch, Director, TPP

Dr. Neil McCulloch is a Director of The Policy Practice.  His main area of focus is on the political economy of reform in the energy sector.  This has included work on corruption in the electricity sector in Lebanon; power sector reform in Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan; energy access in India; coal phase out in Indonesia; fuel subsidy reform in Indonesia, Nigeria and Zambia; and electricity market reform in Guinea, Mali and Togo.  Previously, Dr. McCulloch was the Director of the Economic Policy Program at Oxford Policy Management and, before that, the Lead Economist of the Australian Aid program in Indonesia. He has also led the Globalisation Research Team in the Institute of Development Studies in the UK and was a Senior Economist for the World Bank in Indonesia.

The Chair: Astrid Haas, TPP Associate and Urban Economist

Astrid is an independent urban economist, working in both research and practice, supporting cities around strategy generally and specifically to strengthen their financial systems, with a focus on unleashing new opportunities for sub-national financing. She is currently an Extraordinary Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria and a Fellow at the Infrastructure Institute at the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. In addition, Astrid has worked extensively with city governments across Africa and Asia in her diverse roles, including previously as an urban economist with the African Development Bank and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre.

She holds an MA in International Economics and International Development from Johns Hopkins University. In 2016, she was nominated by the University of Cape Town as one of Africa’s Young Leaders and in 2020 she received Johns Hopkins University’s Outstanding Recent Graduate Award, for her work on urbanisation.