Geoffrey Lamb

Geoffrey Lamb

Lamb, now the World Bank representative in London, was an SACP member during the 1960s, and supervised the PhD theses of several South African marxist scholars at Sussex University during the 1970s, before doing an ideological and moral U-Turn during the 1980s. [1]

In January 2008 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "announced that Geoffrey Lamb has been named Managing Director, Public Policy.

"As managing director, public policy, Lamb will serve as the senior advisor on international policy development to the co-chairs, Bill and Melinda Gates, CEO Patty Stonesifer, and the leadership of the foundation's three program areas—Global Health, Global Development and U.S. Programs. He will lead the foundation's work on cross-cutting public policy issues. Lamb and his team will partner with public policy colleagues in each of the foundation's three program areas (Global Health, Global Development and U.S. Programs) to help build strategic relationships that are critical to the foundation's work and mission to reduce inequity.

"Geoff Lamb has been a Senior Fellow for Global Development at the foundation since September 2006. Prior to this, Lamb held several senior development positions at the World Bank, most recently as Vice President, Concessional Finance and Global Partnerships. In that capacity, he led international negotiations on the replenishment of funding for the International Development Association (IDA) and on the G8 debt reduction initiative, through which governments agreed on the financial framework to forgive the multilateral debt owed by 40 of the world's poorest countries. He also led the World Bank's work on the financing of global public goods, including the development of the International Finance Facility (IFF) and Advanced Market Commitments (AMCs), and the funding of the Global Environment Facility.

"Lamb was born in South Africa, and educated in South Africa and the United Kingdom, where he was a Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. He is an Irish citizen."

• Chair, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative