David Lawson is an applied development economist who works on issues of extreme and chronic poverty, gender, health and household shocks. He recently completed a term as Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki, Associate Professor of Development Economics and Public Policy at the University of Manchester, and Visiting Professor at the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing. He has 25 years of applied public policy experience, in sub-Saharan Africa, as a resident advisor for the Governments of Ethiopia, Lesotho, and Uganda and advised extensively for DFID, OECD, UNECA, UNICEF, World Bank, among others. He has published widely with more than 100 publications and reports, including in leading peer-reviewed journals and six books that include the book series - What Works for the Poorest (Practical Action, 2010, 2017. 2020), and Gender, Poverty and Access to Justice: Policy Implementation in sub-Saharan Africa (Routledge, 2020).

Prof, Ph.D., Laura Stark’s research focuses on gender, sexuality, mobile telephony, urban poverty and early marriage in Tanzania. She is co-editor of the journal Ethnologia Europaea. She has edited the Bloomsbury volume Power and Informality in Urban Africa with Annika Björnsdotter Teppo (2022); and the Routledge volume Gendered Power and Mobile Technology: Intersections in the Global South (2019) with Caroline Wamala Larsson. She has led four major funded research projects, including Mobile Technology, Gender and Development in Africa and India (2010–2013); and Urban Renewal and Income-Generating Spaces for Youth and Women in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2013–2017). Email: laura.stark@jyu.fi; Home pages: www.jyu.fi/hytk/fi/laitokset/hela/en/hela-staff/stark-laura www.laurastark.fi

Projects

Urban Poverty, Urban Renewal and Income-Generating Spaces in Ethiopia and Tanzania