Contributions to Fondad publications

2005 Protecting the Poor: Global Financial Institutions and the Vulnerability of Low- Income Countries

2004 Diversity in Development: Reconsidering the Washington Consensus

2003 The Crisis that Was Not Prevented: Lessons for Argentina, the IMF, and Globalisation

2002 A Regional Approach to Financial Crisis Prevention: Lessons from Europe and Initiatives in Asia, Latin America and Africa

2001 New Challenges of Crisis Prevention: Addressing Economic Imbalances in the North and Boom-Bust Cycles in the South

2000 Reforming the International Financial System: Crisis Prevention and Response

Back Network

José Antonio Ocampo has a BA degree in Economics and Sociology from the University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University.

In June 2007 he joined Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York as a Professor and Fellow of the Committee on Global Thought.

Former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), he was the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs from 2003 till 2007. As such, he headed the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), which is responsible for the follow-up to the major United Nations Summits and Conferences, and services the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly. He also chaired the UN Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs. 

Prior to assuming his present position in the United Nations, he held a number of posts in the Government of Colombia, including those of Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Director (Minister) of the National Planning Department, and Minister of Agriculture. As an academic, he has been Director of the Foundation for Higher Education and Development (FEDESARROLLO), Professor of Economics at Universidad de los Andes and Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and Visiting Professor at Cambridge, Yale and Oxford Universities.

He is the author or editor of a number of books and monographs, and has written several scholarly articles on subjects such as macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial and monetary issues, economic development, international trade, and Colombian and Latin American economic history.