Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Jomo Kwame Sundaram (Tamil: ஜோமோ குவாமே சுந்தரம், romanized: Jōmō Kuvāmē Cuntaram) (born 1 December 1952) is a Malaysian economist. He is a senior adviser at the Khazanah Research Institute, visiting fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and an adjunct professor at the International Islamic University (IIUM).

Jomo attended Westland's Primary School from 1959 to 1963, continuing at the Penang Free School (1964–1966) and the Royal Military College (1967–1970). In 1970, he was selected to represent Malaysia at the World Youth Forum.

Jomo graduated cum laude in economics from Yale University.

He then obtained a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from Harvard University in 1974. He then pursued a PhD, returning to Malaysia to teach at the Science University of Malaysia (USM). He completed his PhD at Harvard in 1977 while teaching at Yale. He taught at Harvard in 1974 and 1975.

In mid-1982, Jomo joined the University of Malaya, where he remained a faculty member until 2004. His academic contributions included appointments as a British Academy Visiting Professor and Fellow at Cambridge University (1987–88, 1991–92), a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Cornell University in 1993, and a senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2004).

Career and UN works

Jomo was the founder-director of the Independent Institute of Social Analysis (INSAN) (1978–2004), editor of the monthly bilingual magazine, Nadi Insan (Human Pulse) (1979–1983), president of the Malaysian Social Science Association (1996–2000) and the convenor of the first and second International Malaysian Studies Conventions (1997, 1999). He was the founder chair (2001–2004) of International Development Economics Associates and has also served on the board of the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development, Geneva.

Before the Asian financial crisis in 1997–98, Jomo was an early advocate of appropriate new capital account management measures, which then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad later introduced. Jomo was also a member of the National Economic Consultative Council during 1989–1991 when he worked on post-New Economic Policy policy reform proposals.

Jomo was a Research Coordinator for the G24 Intergovernmental Group on International Monetary Affairs and Development during 2006–2012. During 2008–2009, he served as adviser to Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the 63rd United Nations General Assembly.

He served as a member of the Stiglitz Commission of Experts of the president of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System during 2008–2009.

Jomo served as the United Nations assistant secretary-general for economic development in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) during 2005–2012, and then as assistant director-general and coordinator for economic and social development at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome during 2012–2015. From 2010 until he departed UN DESA, he served as the G20 'sherpa' to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon besides serving as G20 finance deputy for the UN since 2011.

In 2022, he was interviewed by Frontline on the economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the global south.

In 2023, he was interviewed by Democracy Now about the power of institutions like the World Bank and their connection to the climate emergency and the global debt crisis.

Malaysia Council of Eminent Persons and Economic Action Council

After the 2018 Malaysian general election (GE14), Jomo was appointed as one of the five-member Council of Eminent Persons to advise the new Pakatan Harapan (PH)'s Federal Government and members of the Economic Action Council (EAC) chaired by the new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad later on February 11th, 2019

Bibliography

Monographs

• Development and Population: Critique of Existing Theories. (1982)
• Early Labour: Children at Work on Malaysian Plantations. (With Josie Zaini, P. Ramasamy and Sumathy Suppiah) (1984)
• A Question of Class: Capital, the State and Uneven Development in Malaya. (1988)
• Development Policies and Income Inequality in Peninsular Malaysia. (with Ishak Shari) (1986)
• Mahathir's Economic Policies. (with others) (1989)
• Beyond 1990: Considerations for a New National Development Strategy. (1989)
• Beyond the New Economic Policy? Malaysia in the Nineties. (1990)
• Growth and Structural Change in the Malaysian Economy. (1990)
• The Way Forward? The Political Economy of Development Policy Reform in Malaysia. (1993)
• Trade Unions and the State in Peninsular Malaysia. (with Patricia Todd) (1994)
• U-Turn? Malaysian Economic Development Policies After 1990. (1994)
• Southeast Asia's Misunderstood Miracle: Industrial Policy and Economic Development in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. (with others) (1997)
• Malaysia's Political Economy: Politics, Patronage and Profits. (with E.T. Gomez) (1999)
• Economic Considerations for a Renewed Nationalism. (1998)
• Economic Diversification and Primary Commodity Processing in the Second-tier Southeast Asian Newly Industrializing Countries. (with Michael Rock) (1998)
• Growth After The Asian Crisis: What Remains of the East Asian Model? (2001)
• Globalization, Liberalization and Equitable Development: Lessons from East Asia. (2003)
• Deforesting Malaysia: The Political Economy and Social Ecology of Agricultural Expansion and Commercial Logging. (with Chang Y. T., Khoo K. J. and others) (2004)
• M Way: Mahathir's Economic Legacy. (2004)
• Malaysian "Bail-Outs"? Capital Controls, Restructuring & Recovery in Malaysia. (with Wong Sook Ching and Chin Kok Fay) (2005)
• Law, Institutions and Malaysian Economic Development. (with Wong Sau Ngan) (2008)
• Labour Market Segmentation in Malaysian Services. (with H. L. Khong) (2010)
• Malaysia@50: Economic Development, Distribution, Disparities. (with Wee Chong Hui) (2014)

Edited volumes

• Development in the Eighties. (with H. Osman Rani and Ishak Shari) (1981)
• The Malaysian Economy and Finance. (with Sritua Arief) (1983)
• ASEAN Economies: Crisis and Response. (1985)
• Crisis and Response in the Malaysian Economy. (1987)
• Child Labor in Malaysia. (1992)
• Islamic Economic Alternatives: Critical Perspectives and New Directions. (1992)
• Industrializing Malaysia: Performance, Problems, Prospects. (1993)
• Privatizing Malaysia: Rents, Rhetoric, Realities. (1995)
• Malaysia's Economic Development: Policy & Reform. (with Ng Suew Kiat) (1996)
• Capital, the State and Late Industrialization in East Asia. (with John Borrego and Alejandro Alvarez Bejar) (1996)
• Tigers in Trouble: Financial Governance, Liberalization and Crises in East Asia. (1998)
• Industrial Policy in East Asia. (with Tan Kock Wah) (1999)
• Technology, Competitiveness and the State: Malaysia's Industrial Technology Policies. (with Greg Felker) (1999)
• Rents, Rent-Seeking and Economic Development: Theory and the Asian Evidence. (with Mushtaq Khan) (2000)
• Malaysian Eclipse: Economic Crisis and Recovery. (2001)
• Reinventing Malaysia: Reflections on Its Past and Future. (2001)
• Globalization Versus Development: Heterodox Perspectives. (with Shyamala Nagaraj) (2001)
• Southeast Asia's Industrialization: Industrial Policy, Capabilities and Sustainability. (2001)
• Ugly Malaysians? South–South Investments Abused. (2002)
• Southeast Asia's Paper Tigers: From Miracle to Debacle and Beyond. (2003)
• Manufacturing Miracles: How Internationally Competitive National Firms and Industries Developed in East Asia. (2003)
• Globalization and Its Discontents, Revisited. (with K. J. Khoo) (2003)
• Ethnic Business Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia. (with Brian Folk) (2003)
• After The Storm: Crisis, Recovery and Sustaining Development in East Asia. (2004)
• The New Development Economics. (with Ben Fine) (2005)
• The Origins of Development Economics. (with Erik Reinert) (2005)
• Pioneers of Development Economics. (2005)
• The Long Twentieth Century – Globalization Under Hegemony: The Changing World Economy. (2006)
• The Long Twentieth Century – The Great Divergence: Hegemony, Uneven Development and Global Inequality. (2006)
• Malaysian Industrial Policy. (2007)
• Policy Matters: Economic and Social Policies to Sustain Equitable Development. (with Jose Antonio Ocampo) (2007)
• Flat World, Big Gaps: Economic Liberalization, Globalization, Poverty and Inequality. (2007)
• Growth Divergences: Explaining Differences in Economic Performance. (with Jose Antonio Ocampo and Robert Vos) (2007)
• Towards Full and Decent Employment. (with Jose Antonio Ocampo) (2007)
• Reforming the International Financial System for Development. (2011)
• Poor Poverty. (with Anis Chowdhury) (2011)
• Good Governance For What?. (with Anis Chowdhury) (2012)

External links

• Jomo's substack, Challenging Development +
• KS Jomo's website