SPEAKERS AND MODERATORS
Koshy Thomas
Head, Outcome Based Budgeting Project Team
Ministry of Finance, Malaysia; and
Chairman, Coordinating Committee of the Asia-Pacific Community of Practice
on Managing for Development Results
Mr. Koshy Thomas (Koshy) heads the Outcome-Based Budgeting Project Team
of the Ministry of Finance, Malaysia. He is a Deputy Undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance.
Koshy is also the current Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Asia-Pacific
Community of Practice on Managing for Development Results (APCoP). As chair, he oversees
implementation of the APCoP work program and represents it in MfDR fora.
He is an advocate of MfDR and has vast experience in integrated development planning,
results-based budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, and fiscal management. He has been
working with the Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance for the past 26 years in various capacities in
finance and loan management, taxation, central budget, and program evaluation. He has also
worked for three years in monitoring and evaluation with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Koshy holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Human Services (Monitoring and Evaluation) from the
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia; a Post Graduate Diploma in Public
Management from the National Institute of Public Administration in Kuala Lumpur; and a BA
Economics major in Public Finance from the University of Malaysia.
Kazu Sakai
Director General, Strategy and Policy Department
Asian Development Bank
Mr. Kazu Sakai is the Director General of the Strategy and Policy Department of
ADB. He assumed the position in November 2004.
As Director General, Mr. Sakai heads the team that provides ADB with a strategic planning
perspective and direction, ensures policy and operations coordination, and maintains
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institutional relations with the international development community, especially on mattes
relating to resource mobilization.
Prior to this, Mr. Sakai was the Deputy Director General of the Mekong Department. He assisted
the Director General in implementing the strategic agenda of ADB in Cambodia, Lao People’s
Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam and the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).
Mr. Sakai began his career in ADB in 1987, and has since worked in various capacities in different
subregions in Asia. Prior to the ADB reorganization in 2002, he worked in the Programs
Department (West) as Head, GMS Unit, and as Programs Manager for the individual GMS
countries and GMS program. He was also Programs Manager for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and
the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation Program.
Earlier, Mr. Sakai was involved in developing various ADB-wide strategies and policies. He also
acted as team leader for the processing of power projects in the PRC and Indonesia. During his
stint in the Central Projects Services Office (now called the Central Operations Services Office),
Mr. Sakai was responsible for country portfolio reviews in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
Prior to ADB, Mr. Sakai worked for 11 years in the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund
(presently the Japan Bank for International Cooperation).
Mr. Sakai holds a BA in International Relations from the Tokyo University of Foreign Affairs.
Teertha Dhakal
Member Secretary, Administrative Restructuring Commission
Government of Nepal
Member, APCoP Coordinating Committee
Mr. Teertha Raj Dhakal, Member Secretary Administrative Restructuring
Commission of the Government of Nepal (GON), has been working more than two decades in
the GON including thirteen years (up to March 2010) in the National Planning Commission
Secretariat where he was heavily involved in formulating the PRSP, MTEF and led in designing
Poverty Monitoring and Analysis System (PMAS) by means of which Nepal has been making
efforts to institutionalize MfDR approaches.
Mr. Dhakal, as a National Programme Director of ‘Poverty Monitoring in Support of PRSP (20022005), Operationalizing MDGs in Nepal (2004-2006) and National Project Manager of
Operationalizing MfDR (2006-2007) has contributed in designing indicators and information bases
for results-based M&E, among others. Moreover, as a technical committee member of Nepal
Living Standards Survey, 2003/04 and Demographic and Health Survey, 2006 he played key roles
streamline and reorient household surveys effective for results-based M&E. The GON as
recognition of his contribution in designing results-based planning and M&E awarded him ‘Best
Civil Service Award’ in 2006.
Further, Mr. Dhakal has been contributing in the discourses of institutionalizing MfDR sharing
experiences not only as a resource person in dozens of domestic events but also in various
regional events and knowledge networking with written case studies especially of education
sector. He has been contributing the APCOP-MfDR as a Coordinating Committee member since
the launch of the Community in 2006.
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Noriko Ogawa
Advisor, Strategy and Policy Department
and Concurrent Head, Results Management Unit
Asian Development Bank
Ms. Noriko Ogawa heads the Results Management Unit of ADB's Strategy and
Policy Department and is an advisor in the Department. The Unit, established in
2004, is mandated to mainstream a more results-focused approach to managing ADB and its
operations. The Unit prepares ADB's annual corporate performance report, the Development
Effectiveness Review. The Review scores ADB performance against its targets in the corporate
results framework, discusses issues, and identifies steps for improvement.
Prior to her current appointment, Ms. Ogawa was a core negotiation team member for the ninth
replenishment of the Asian Development Fund successfully completed in 2008. She has been
with ADB since 1995 and spent most of her career in operations, focusing on Southeast Asia. She
served as a Senior Advisor to the Vice President of Knowledge Management and Sustainable
Development, and headed ADB's public affairs unit.
She started her career as an investment banker in New York responsible for corporate finance in
Latin American emerging markets. She also managed a trust fund in Japan that financed NGO
projects in Asia.
Ms. Ogawa holds a Masters in International Relations and Development Economics from Johns
Hopkins University in the United States, and studied law at Keio University in Japan. She has two
children, and enjoys sports and traveling.
Heng Chou
Cambodian Rehabilitation and Development Board,
Council for Development of Cambodia, Royal Government of Cambodia
Mr. Heng Chou has been an official with the Cambodian Rehabilitation and
Development Board of the Council for Development of Cambodia, Royal
Government of Cambodia for seven years.
Rebecca Polestico
Technical Adviser, Monitoring and Evaluation
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation
Juba, Southern Sudan
Ms. Rebecca V. Polestico is a Technical Adviser for Monitoring and Evaluation for
Food and Agriculture Organization in the United Nation based in Juba, Southern Sudan. In this
capacity, she has been engaged in developing Monitoring and Evaluation System for Sudan
Productive Capacity Program, guided by the institutional or national strategy and
implementation modalities with strong focus on the benchmark indicators as defined. She has
been a prime mover for the results-based planning, monitoring and evaluation schemes for
which the threshold of impact measures resolves to counterfactual mechanism that offers the
critical effect on programming efficacy and sustainability. Her M&E grips have always been
directed towards the thrust on program planning and policy formulation leading to “changing
footprints and in reshaping lives”.
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For more than 15 years, she has served 58 countries for various capacities in the areas of
research and evaluation for the sectors of education, health, governance, agriculture,
infrastructure, social services, among others. She has worked in post conflict countries like
Afghanistan, the Sudan both North and South, Pakistan, etc looking through the glass ceilings of
poverty alleviation and livelihood opportunities serving the grassroot communities.
Ms. Polestico has been an international development worker who started her career as a
university lecturer and professor for 15 years in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Applied
Statistics in the Philippines. She has written several publications regarding training systems,
impact evaluations, instrument development, and natural sciences. She has earned both her
Doctoral Degree in Research and Evaluation and Masters of Arts in Teaching Physics at the
University of the Philippines. She loves writing and travelling.
Sen Sovann
Deputy Secretary General
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
Kingdom of Cambodia
Dr. Sen Sovann is a Cambodian, currently a Deputy Secretary General of
MAFF, Project Director of Tonle Sap Poverty Reduction and Small Holder Development project,
and Advisor to H.E. Tea Banh, DPM.
Dr. Sen earned Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine in 1989, DVM in 1992 and MSc in Epidemiology
and Community Health at LSU, USA in 1996. He is a Former Fulbright Scholar 1994-1996 and a
1996 IIE Kenneth Holland Award Winner.
He has been employed by MAFF since 1990. For the last 20 years, Dr. Sen’s public carrier started
from a technical staff, Chief Veterinary Pathology, veterinary practitioner, trainer, lecturer,
researcher, national consultant, livestock specialist, development project manager, Country
Director of an international development program. He appointed Acting Dean of Faculty of
Animal Health and Production from 1997-1999. Prior his current position, he was a Deputy
Director of Department of Animal Health and Production and a National Project Coordinator,
IFAD/WB project. From a technical carrier, Dr. Sen has been appointed in 2004 as an Advisor to
H.E. Tea Banh, DPM for Agriculture and support to coordinating committee of Cambodia Armed
Force UN Peacekeeping Mission, while he was a member of the Cambodia-UN Peacekeeping
Negotiation Team.
As a Deputy Secretary General, MAFF, Dr. Sen’s major tasks involve public veterinary services,
fisheries, international cooperation, coordination of development project, and is a Cambodia
Delegate and Secretary General of the Regional Commission for Asia, the Far East and Oceania
of the World Organization for Animal Health.
Mark Sundberg
Manager of the Corporate and Global Evaluation and Methods Unit
Independent Evaluation Group (IEG)
World Bank
Mr. Mark Sundberg is a US national and is Manager of the Corporate and
Global Evaluation and Methods Unit, in the World Bank's Independent
Evaluation Group. In this capacity Mr. Sundberg leads preparation of IEG’s
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flagship report (the Annual Review of Development Effectiveness), oversees corporate
evaluations, Global Program assessments, and IEG’s program of impact evaluation.
Before joining IEG he was a Lead Economist in the Chief Economist’s office of the World Bank’s
Research complex, undertaking policy review and advising on Bank operations and analytic
products. In this capacity he was the lead author for the 2006 and 2007 Global Monitoring
Reports.
During the previous twelve years, he worked as a country economist in the World Bank, covering
India and Pakistan (1999-2002), Russia and Turkey (1995-96, 1998-99), Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and
Thailand (1991-94), and Ghana (1990). He was a contributing author for the 1990 World
Development Report on Poverty. From 1997 to 1998 he was on leave from the Bank working as
the Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup) regional Chief Economist for Asian Emerging Markets,
based in Hong Kong.
His recent publications include: Aid Effectiveness – Opening the Black Box (American Economic
Review, with F Bourguignon 2007); Making Aid Work (with A Gelb, Finance and Development,
2006); Absorptive Capacity and Achieving the MDGs: The Case of Ethiopia (with H Lofgren, IMF
2006), and; Constraints to Achieving the MDGs with Scaled Up Aid (with F Bourguignon, UN
working paper, 2006).
Mr. Sundberg holds a Ph.D in Economics from Harvard University, and a B.A. from Yale University.
Tahir Shamshad
Joint Secretary/Director General (Infrastructure Section), Projects Wing, Planning
Commission, Government of Pakistan
Mr. Tahir Shamshad is Joint Secretary/Director General of the Infrastructure
Section at the Projects Wing, Planning Commission, Government of Pakistan. As
the head of his Section, his main role is to introduce policies and effective ways to monitor the
implementation of development schemes funded by the Government of Pakistan through its
annual Public Sector Development Program pertaining to the Infrastructure sector. He also
coordinates with sponsoring agencies for strategic feed back on the progress of implementation
and its sectoral impact. He also oversees approval of the quarterly Cash/Work Plans of the
ongoing development projects of Infra sector.
Before joining Planning Commission, he was Member (Engineering) at the Capital Development
Authority, Islamabad, where he formulated and implemented policies for provision of basic civic
amenities to the residents of Islamabad ensuring that they get levels of services matching with
other metropolitan capitals of the world.
Overall, Mr. Tahir Shamshad has about 30 years of work experience in project planning, project
management, monitoring and evaluation in numerous countries including Pakistan, Germany,
Qatar, Oman and Thailand. He has worked on more than 100 projects controlled by his parent
organization National Engineering Services Pakistan (Pvt.) Limited (NESPAK) either independently
or in association with various International Consultants including FEDCON of Thailand, Swan
Wooster of Canada, Montgomery Watson, Harza International L.P. of USA, Bennie, Black and
Veatch. of UK., Air-Consult, Flughafen of Germany, Fichner of Germany, Airport-De-Paris of
France, Leningnerpromex of Russia, Bechtel of USA, Shankland & COX of UK and Kinhill of
Australia.
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He is a member the American Society of Civil Engineers as well as Pakistan Engineering Council.
He holds a Masters in Engineering Management from UET, and B.E in Civil Engineering from N.E.D.
University, Karachi, Pakistan.
Farzana Ahmed
Principal Results Management Specialist
Strategy and Policy Department
Asian Development Bank
Ms. Farzana Ahmed is Principal Results Management Specialist of the Strategy
and Policy Department of the Asian Development Bank. She took over this position in July 2009.
She is also the Principal Coordinator of the APCoP Secretariat. In her current role, Ms. Ahmed
coordinates support for APCoP activities at the regional and country level working together with
the APCoP coordinating committee and ADB operations.
Ms. Ahmed started her career in ADB in 1998 in the Budget, Personnel and Management Systems
Department. Following that, she held positions in the Southeast Asia Department of ADB in
portfolio management in the office of the Director General and then in financial management
at the Indonesia Country office. While in Indonesia, Ms. Ahmed was seconded to the Australian
Agency for International Development where she developed programs for the post Tsunami
rehabilitation of Aceh and coordinated the Australia-Indonesia country strategy paper.
Before joining ADB, Ms. Ahmed worked in various financial positions in the private sector in UK
and Australia. Bangladeshi by origin, Ms. Ahmed holds a Masters degree in Economics and
Politics from Oxford University, UK, and is a qualified chartered accountant.
Kunio Senga
Director General, Southeast Asia Department
Asian Development Bank
Kunio Senga is the Director General of ADB's Southeast Asia Department. He
took over this position in January 2010.
Mr. Senga oversees ADB's strategic agenda and development programs in
Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, as well as the Greater Mekong Subregion. He is also
responsible for the execution of the BIMP-EAGA and IMT-GT sub-regional initiatives of the
department.
Prior to his appointment, Mr. Senga was the Director General of the South Asia Department from
September 2004 to early January 2010. He was the Director General of the Strategy and Policy
Department (SPD) from 21 August 2002 until 31 August 2004.
Mr. Senga, who joined as a Young Professional in 1984, has served in various capacities. Before
his SPD assignment, he was Director, Operations Coordination Division, East and Central Asia
Department; and Manager, Programs Division East II and III in 2000. In 2001, Mr. Senga was a
member of the management committee that formulated proposals for the reorganization of
ADB operations.
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From 1993-2000, he served as Senior Budget and Management Services Officer and later as
Manager, Budget and Management Services Division. He also assumed the position of Project
Economist from 1986 to 1991.
Before joining ADB, Mr. Senga was Programming Officer at the International Labour
Organization.
He holds a Master’s degree in Economics, specializing in International Development and Trade,
from the School of Economics, University of the Philippines.
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Keat Chhon
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister of Economy and Finance
Royal Government of Cambodia
Tran Thanh Long
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