Episode 112: Owen Barder

Thirty years ago, while still in high school, Owen Barder was was living in Ethiopia. His father was a career diplomat and at the time was serving as the British Ambassador. This was in the mid 1980s, at the height of a famine that would kill hundreds of thousands of people. Owen describes how witnessing that famine up close compelled him to a career in economics and global development.

Owen served as an economist in several high ranking posts in the British government, but in the early 1990s he took a job advising the newly inaugurated government of Nelson Mandela to help draft South Africa's first post-apartheid budget. He discusses some of the behind-the-scenes politics he witnessed.

Owen is currently with the Center for Global Development and a professor at the London School of Economics.I caught up with him just as he returned from the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, which was a UN-backed conference to improve the way humanitarian aid is delivered. We kick off with a brief d…