World Bank Group

10/03/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/01/2024 18:19

Webinar Series: Data and Knowledge to Support Innovations, Resilience, and Inclusivity in Transport

This monthly series will cover a range of topics related to evidence, knowledge, and methodologies to support more effective, resilient and inclusive transport investments. The series will cover themes related to developing resilient transport infrastructure and asset management, applications of innovative technologies and data for more effective transport, best practices in large scale transport network planning, as well as evidence on gender and inclusion in transport investments. The series has been developed in response to demand from transport practitioners for access to the latest research findings on transport and will further provide a platform for dialogue on these topics. The first webinar will introduce the series with selected snapshots highlighting what to expect from the monthly deep dive webinars.

Series Opening
8:00am - 8:20am About the series Elizabeth Jones - Senior Transport Advisor, UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office
Introduction to ieConnect for Impact Program Sveta Milusheva, PhD - Senior Economist, Development Impact, World Bank
Introduction to High Volume Transport Programme Neil Ebenezer, PhD - Consultant on Transport and Health Issues
Overview of the Topics Covered in the Future Webinars
8:20am - 8:30am Resilient Transport Infrastructure Systems Jim Hall, FREng - Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks, University of Oxford
8:30am - 9:40am Data Collection and Research Methodologies Using Innovative Technology Sveta Milusheva, PhD - Senior Economist, Development Impact, World Bank
8:40am - 8:50am Informal Transport in the Global South Neil Ebenezer, PhD - Consultant on Transport and Health Issues
8:50am - 9:00am Gender, Inclusion and Sustainable Transport Girija Borker, PhD - Research Economist, Development Impact, World Bank
Q&A
9:00am - 9:25am Questions about the series Presenters and moderator
Closing Remarks
9:25am - 9:30am Closing remarks Elizabeth Jones - Senior Transport Advisor, UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office

Moderator: Elizabeth Jones - Senior Transport Advisor, UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office

Mrs. Elizabeth Jones leads the Transport Research portfolio for the UK Government's Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). She is the Senior Transport Adviser within FCDO and joined the UK Government in 1997.

Mrs. Elizabeth Jones has more than 25 years' experience working on international development globally. She has worked and lived in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Bangladesh and most recently for four years in Fiji. She has extensive experience working with partner governments, bilaterals, multi-laterals and civil society spanning transport, water supply & sanitation, urban development and anti-corruption. She has previously held positions on the UK Institute of Civil Engineer's Transport Journal Panel, Chaired the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility Board, been a founding Board member for Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) and Board member for the University of Birmingham's Road Management & Engineering MSc.

Neil Ebenezer (PhD) - Consultant on Transport and Health Issues

Neil is the Director of a consultancy company that has a particular focus on the impact of transport on human health, having worked over the last 30 years across the health and transport sectors. He has developed a portfolio career and is currently the Team Leader of the High-Volume Transport Applied Research Programme (HVT), an £18million programme funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). HVT undertakes research into the complex issues of sustainable transport development across Africa and South Asia

He has also held various posts within the civil service, including the Head of Science and Innovation at the Department of Transport (DfT) where he represented the UK on the Transport Programme Committee of Horizon 2020 and led a team at DfT on improving access to research and horizon scanning.

Jim Hall FREng - Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks, University of Oxford.

Before joining the University of Oxford, Prof Hall held academic positions in the Newcastle University and the University of Bristol. He is internationally recognised for his research on risk analysis and decision making under uncertainty for water resource systems, flood and coastal risk management, infrastructure systems and adaptation to climate change. Professor Hall is a member of the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, is a Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission and is Vice President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Prof Hall led the development of the National Infrastructure Systems Model (NISMOD), which was used for the UK's first National Infrastructure Assessment and for analysis of the resilience of energy, transport, digital and water networks in Great Britain. He conceived of, and now chairs, the UK's Data and Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI). His systems analysis methods have been applied worldwide, including in Argentina, Bangladesh, China, Curacao, Jamaica, Kenya, St Lucia, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam, and globally. He has published more than 160 articles in peer reviewed journals, and has published four books, including, The Future of National Infrastructure: A System-of-Systems Approach, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016.

Girija Borker - Research Economist and Gender Program Coordinator in the Development Impact Group, World Bank

Girija Borker is a development economist working primarily on gender, violence, and transport in urban areas. A large part of her current research studies the economic consequences of sexual harassment in public spaces and assesses potential solutions' effectiveness on women's physical and economic mobility such as police patrolling, a reliable reporting system, and access to subsidized public transit. Girija has a Masters in Economics from the University of Cambridge, UK, an MPhil from Toulouse School of Economics, France, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University.

Sveta Milusheva - Senior Economist in the Development Impact Group at the World Bank

Sveta Milusheva leads the ieConnect program of impact evaluations focused on transport investments and within this program leads the work on urban mobility. Her research interests include infrastructure and information & communication technologies, population mobility, health and gender. In particular, her work focuses on the application of new big data sources, such as mobile phone data and crowdsourced data, to study questions in development and to evaluate the impact of development interventions. She received her PhD and MA in Economics from Brown University and her BA in Economics and International Studies from Emory University.

Available soon