Jomo Kwame Sundaram (born 11 December 1952), known as Jomo, is a prominent Malaysian economist, who has served as the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) since 2005. He was founder chair of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), and sat on the Board of the United Nations Research Institute For Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva. In 2007, he was awarded the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. During 2008-2009, he served as adviser to Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd United Nations General Assembly, and as a member of the [Stiglitz] Commission of Experts of the President of the United Nations General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System.
Jomo is a leading scholar and expert on the political economy of development, especially in Southeast Asia, who has authored or edited over a hundred books and translated 12 volumes besides writing many academic papers and articles for the media. He is on the editorial boards of several learned journals.
Born in Penang, Malaysia, in 1952, Jomo studied at the Penang Free School (PFS, 1964-1966), Royal Military College (RMC, 1967-1970), Yale (1970-1973) and Harvard (1973-1977). He has taught at Science University of Malaysia (USM, 1974), Harvard (1974-1975), Yale (1977), National University of Malaysia (UKM, 1977-1982), University of Malaya (1982-2004) and Cornell (1993). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University (1987-1988; 1991-1992) and a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2004).
Before joining the UN, Jomo was already widely recognized as an outspoken intellectual, with unorthodox non-partisan views. Before the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98, Jomo was an early advocate of appropriate new capital account management measures, which then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad later introduced. When then Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was imprisoned without trial under the Internal Security Act, Jomo publicly condemned the repression. In late 1998, he was sued for defamation for 250 million ringgit by Vincent Tan, a Mahathir era billionaire, who later dropped the case after almost a decade.
Contents |
Named after two African anti-imperialist leaders, Jomo was born in Penang, Malaysia, soon after the first Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta was incarcerated by the British in late 1952 and years after the first Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah served as Secretary of the Pan-African Congress. He spent his early years studying at Westlands Primary School (1959–63), the Penang Free School (1964–66) and the Royal Military College (1967–70), when he was selected as Malaysia’s delegate to the World Youth Forum in 1970.
Jomo later attended Yale College (1970–73) on a full scholarship. After graduating cum laude from Yale, maoring in economics, Jomo went on to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard to obtain his MPA in 1974. After losing his father in early 1974, he returned to teach in Malaysia at Universiti Sains Malaysia in mid-1974, before working for a doctorate at Harvard, which he completed in late 1977 while teaching at Yale, after earlier teaching stints at Harvard during 1974 and 1975 in the Economics Department, the Social Studies program and the Kennedy Institute of Politics.
He returned to Malaysia to research his doctoral thesis in 1976 before joining the economics faculty of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in early 1977. In mid-1982, Jomo moved to the University of Malaya, where he remained until 2004. He was a British Academy Visiting Professor and later Visiting Fellow at Cambridge (1987–88, 1991–92), Fulbright Visiting Professor at Cornell University (1993) and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2004).
Jomo was also Founder Director of the independent Institute of Social Analysis (INSAN) (1978-2004), editor of the monthly bilingual magazine, Nadi Insan (Human Pulse) (1979-1983), President of the Malaysian Social Science Association (1996-2000) and Convenor of the first and second International Malaysian Studies Conventions (1997, 1999). He was Founder Chair (2001-2004) of International Development Economics Associates and has also served on the Board of the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development, Geneva.
Jomo was a member of the National Economic Consultative Council during 1989-1991 when he worked on post-New Economic Policy or post-1990 policy reform proposals. Since the 1970s, he has worked with government ministries, business organizations, trade unions as well as civil society organizations. Since the 1980s, he has also worked with many international organizations.
Since January 2005, Jomo has been Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and (Honorary) Research Coordinator for the G24 Intergovernmental Group on International Monetary Affairs and Development since December 2006. He also led the response to the 2005 Summit call to help Member States develop national development strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals while promoting their greater coherence as the United Nations Development Agenda. Jomo has tried to ensure greater UN system-wide collaboration in report preparation including the annual World Economic and Social Survey and biennial Report on the World Social Situation.
Together with the Bank of International Settlements, the UN and the G24 – under his leadership – have been acknowledged as the only international organizations who warned of the impending 2007-2009 crisis. In response to the crisis, he initiated the UN system-wide supplementary Macroeconomic Advisory Capacity to offer ‘second opinions’ on appropriate policy responses emphasizing economic recovery and employment generation, served as a member of the [Stiglitz] Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System during 2008-2009, and led a parallel effort for the G24 to articulate international financial system reform proposals.
Since 2010, he has been G20 ‘sherpa’ for the UN Secretary General besides serving as G20 ‘Finance Deputy’ for the UN since 2011. In these different capacities, he has worked to build an international consensus to ensure UN system-wide coherence, complementary economic and social policies for balanced and sustainable development, appropriate investment incentives, employment generation and, more recently, a strong and sustained economic recovery.
Jomo has addressed ministerial meetings of UNCTAD, most UN regional commissions, Funds and Programmes, several UN agencies as well as ECOSOC and the General Assembly’s Second, Third and Fifth Committees as well as the World Economic Forum (Davos), Global Policy Forum (Yaroslavl), World Public Forum (Rhodos), World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) and many academic, business and civil society conferences.
His extensive writings have covered development economics, international economics, industrial policy, privatization, rent-seeking corruption, economic liberalization, economic distribution, affirmative action, ethnic relations, Islam and Malaysian history. Jomo has authored or edited over a hundred books and translated a dozen volumes besides writing many academic papers and articles for the media. Some of his better known books include A Question of Class, Privatizing Malaysia, Southeast Asia’s Misunderstood Miracle, Tigers in Trouble, Malaysia’s Political Economy, Rents, Rent-Seeking and Economic Development, Malaysian Eclipse, The New Development Economics, Flat World, Big Gaps, Reforming the International Financial System for Development, Poor Poverty and Good Governance for What? In 2007, he was awarded the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
Jomo is married to Noelle Rodriguez; they have three children, Nadia (born 1987), Emil (born 1989) and Leal (born 1990). His mother lived with them on Roosevelt Island in New York City until she passed away in December 2010 at the age of 91.