His responsibilities at the United Nations over the last seven years as well as his earlier experience as an academic, analyst, consultant, civic leader, and adviser to governments, trade unions and business organizations, have prepared him well for the challenging responsibilities of leading the ILO in these difficult times. With his experience, he can effectively lead the ILO’s combination of advocacy, analytical and operational work. The ILO has a unique historic role to play in engaging key stakeholders in a common effort to articulate, visualize, coordinate and realize a new global social compact as the basis for rapid, sustained and inclusive progress.

Why Jomo?

Malaysia considers Jomo eminently qualified owing to his consistent record of innovative and progressive leadership as well as demonstrated commitment to social inclusion, dialogue and tripartism.

Since January 2005, Jomo has been Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. He has led in all three areas of the Department’s work, namely policy analysis, substantive support for the intergovernmental processes as well as technical cooperation for capacity development.

Jomo served on the [Stiglitz] Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System during 2008-09.
As G20 ‘sherpa’ to the UN Secretary-General and G20 ‘Finance Deputy’ for the UN, he has worked to forge international consensus for an inclusive, sustained and job-rich economic recovery.

Jomo is the first incumbent in his senior UN position, especially created to enhance the work of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which is responsible for four-fifths of the UN’s New York Secretariat publications.

Since December 2006, he has also been (Honorary) Research Coordinator for the G24 Intergovernmental Group on International Monetary Affairs and Development.

Together with the Bank of International Settlements, the UN and the G24 have been acknowledged as the only international organizations that warned of the impending 2008-09 crisis.

He has addressed the International Labour Conference, ministerial meetings of UNCTAD, most UN Regional Commissions, UN Funds, Programmes and Specialized Agencies, the UN General Assembly and Economic and Social Council, the World Economic Forum (Davos and elsewhere), Global Policy Forum (Yaroslavl), World Public Forum (Rhodes), World Social Forum (Porto Alegre, Mumbai) as well as many academic, business and civil society conferences.

He was Founder Chair of International Development Economics Associates, and has also served on the Board of the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development, Geneva, since 2002, as well as the executive committees of other international professional associations.

In Malaysia, Jomo was a member of the National Economic Consultative Council, where he strived for tripartite consultations to strengthen policy-making. He developed innovative proposals for a new Malaysian social contract as the basis for accelerated modernization and nation-building based on Malaysia’s unique multicultural heritage.

Jomo was Founding Director of the independent Institute of Social Analysis (INSAN) (1978-2004), founding editor of a monthly bilingual magazine and of several learned journals, President of the Malaysian Social Science Association (1996-2000) and convened the first and second International Malaysian Studies Conventions (1997, 1999).

Jomo has authored or edited over a hundred books and translated a dozen volumes besides writing many academic papers and media articles. His extensive writings have covered development economics, macroeconomic policy, labour economics, international economics, industrial policy, political economy, corruption, economic distribution, ethnic relations and economic history.

Internationally, he has pioneered analytical research on affirmative action, rent-seeking, and developmental governance, besides leading policy advocacy for a strong and sustained job-rich recovery. In 2007, he was awarded the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

After graduating cum laude from Yale, majoring in economics, in 1973, he received his MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 1974 and his PhD from Harvard in 1978.

He has taught at Harvard, Yale and Cornell as well as three Malaysian universities. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University and at the National University of Singapore.

Born in colonial Malaya to a multicultural family, he was named after two African anti-colonial leaders, Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah.

Besides Malay and English, he has learnt Spanish, French, Russian, Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew, Tamil and Indonesian.

Please find the pdf version of this page below.

English Version / Chinese Version / French Version / Espanol Version