New Economy Forum: Transforming Fiscal Policy Through Digital Public Infrastructure

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Location: Meeting Halls A&B, HQ1-3-430A&B

Countries leading the digital transformation of public finances are investing in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), comprising digital building blocks such as digital ID, data sharing solutions and e-payment systems. This session will discuss the opportunities and challenges with DPIs with key speakers from government, development partners and IMF staff.

Moderator

Gerardo Una

Fiscal Affairs Department, IMF

Gerardo Una is a Senior Economist at the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF. He provides technical assistance to governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia countries on treasury management, public investment management, financial management information systems, and digital solutions to improve fiscal management. Currently he is leading digital innovations and public financial management initiatives at the Fiscal Affairs Department. Also, Gerardo is the Head of the FAD Capacity Development Strategy Support Team. Prior to join the IMF, he worked at the Ministry of Finance of Chile, the Ministry of Finance of Argentina, and the Ministry of Finance of Paraguay. Gerardo holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Executive Program Certification in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Speakers

Shirin Hamid

Chief Information Officer, IMF

Shirin Hamid is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Director of Information Technology at the IMF. She has more than 20 years of executive leadership in digital transformation and innovative use of information management and technologies for complex, large multinational and multi-dimensional organizations at an international scale. Prior to the Fund, Shirin was CIO at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for 6 years, where she led major digital transformations in the organization, spanning over 30 countries. Shirin also held the role of Chief Technology Officer and Director of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), where she worked to maximize the impact of technology on a global stage, covering 170 countries. Shirin’s work was recognized by the CIO 100 Award in 2019, 2021 and 2022. She was honored to be named as The World's 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government in 2019, Top 100 Premier Global IT Leader by ComputerWorld in 2014, as well as Asia CIO 100 Honoree Award in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

Pramod Varma

CTO EkStep Foundation, Chief Architect Aadhaar & India Stack

Dr. Pramod Varma is the Chief Architect of Aadhaar, India's digital identity program that has successfully covered more than 1.3 billion people. He is also the chief architect for various India Stack layers such as eSign, Digital Locker, and Unified Payment Interface (UPI), and Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA), and all of which are now working at population scale in India. He also played integral role in architecting India’s digital health infrastructure (ABDM), vaccination & immunization infrastructure (Co-WIN and DIVOC), and Unified Health Interface (UHI). He is currently the CTO of EkStep Foundation, a not-for-profit creating learner-centric digital public. He is an advisor to Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), National Payment Corporation (NPCI), Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), National Health Authority (NHA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Turing Institute Identity Initiative in the UK. Pramod holds a Master’s and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science along with a second Master’s in Applied Mathematics.

Lucy Harris

Co-Lead of the Digital Public Goods Alliance Secretariat

Lucy Harris has been a Co-Lead of the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) Secretariat since 2020.The DPGA is a multi-stakeholder initiative co-hosted by UNICEF, UNDP and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the sustainable development goals in low- and middle-income countries by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods. Prior to her involvement with the DPGA, Lucy spent 6 years with Mozilla. During this time Lucy served as the Head of Community Development for the Mozilla Corporation’s Open Innovation team and as a Community Mobilizer for the Mozilla Foundation, a global nonprofit dedicated to keeping the Internet a global public resource that is open and accessible to all. 

Sailendra Pattanayak

Fiscal Affairs Department, IMF

Sailendra Pattanayak is currently a Deputy Division Chief in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF. He has extensive experience in the public financial management area and the wider public sector. Since joining the IMF in 2006, he has advised a wide range of countries, of all income levels, on public financial management and fiscal transparency issues. Before joining the IMF, he held senior positions in the Indian federal government, including at the Ministry of Finance. He has written several papers and has led analytical projects at the IMF on a broad range of fiscal issues, including the development of standards and guidance material on fiscal transparency, and more recently, on fiscal risks and GovTech/digitalization. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering, as well as Master’s degrees in public administration and public policy respectively from the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) and Sciences Po in Paris, France.

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