The Social Policy Program of the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Middle East Technical University, UNDP and the World Bank Turkey Offices hosted Dr. Jesko Hentschel (World Bank) and Meltem Aran (Oxford University), whose seminar was entitled "Equality of Opportunity for the Next Generation in Turkey”. The speakers introduced the main findings of a new report by the World Bank on “Turkey: Expanding Opportunities for Next Generations”. They first posed the question on the main reason of why there are people in need today in Turkey, given the improvements in social outcomes over the last few decades. Based on findings of a survey conducted in 2006, Turks strongly agree that the gap between rich and poor should be reduced and indicate that 65 percent of inequality is due to injustice. This hints the effects beyond people’s own efforts; in other words circumstances that people cannot influence. The findings of the report show that one-third of the wealth inequalities are due to the unequal opportunities/circumstances. These inequalities travel across generations. Children’s life chances are significantly found to be impacted by their grandparents’ socio-economic profile. The report also brings forward discrepancies of child development indicators across different opportunity groups and highlights how low opportunity groups rate poorly in these indicators, especially for girls. One of the prior policies is investing in early childhood development. The speakers indicated that this recent report emphasizes how early childhood policies are key in breaking the intergenerational transmission of inequality of opportunities.

Short Biographies

Jesko Hentschel
Jesko Hentschel is currently the Sector Manager for Human Development Economics for the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. During his career at the World Bank, Jesko has worked as a coordinator for the Bank's human development program in the Southern Cone of Latin America, Turkey and the Indian Ocean Countries of Africa. He holds graduate degrees in economics and social policy from the University of Wisconsin (Madison), Konstanz University (Germany) and the London School of Economics and Social Science and has published widely on methodological approaches to assessing poverty and anti-poverty policies. Before joining the World Bank, he worked at several United Nations agencies. Jesko has also been affiliated with the University of Potsdam as a lecturer in development studies.

Meltem Aran
Meltem Aran is a human development economist with research focusing on poverty, inequality and overall distributional impact of social policies. Most recently, she has also been working on issues of gender, women's empowerment, intra-household allocation of resources and children’s outcomes in low opportunity settings. Prior to Turkey, she has worked in South Africa and, Indonesia on research projects related to poverty and measuring the impact of public spending and poverty alleviation programs in health, education and social protection. Meltem Aran is currently working towards her doctoral degree in Economics at the University of Oxford. She holds a master's degree in international development from Harvard University and a BA from Brown University in economics and international relations.

The Social Policy Program of the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Middle East Technical University, UNDP and the World Bank Turkey Offices hosted Dr. Francisco Rodriguez (UNDP), whose seminar was entitled "Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development, The 2009 Global Human Development Report”. Dr. Rodriguez focused his presentation on how migration affected different dimensions of well-being. He highlighted the important insights of the topic of migration and explained why borders do matter in well-being. The report finds that levels of gain of internal movers are higher for low-skilled, then high-skilled. The children of movers are found to have a much greater chance of surviving. Higher enrollment rates and lower infant rates are more likely. Dr. Rodriguez concluded that migration is good but also might have adverse effects for those low-skilled movers who do not have basic rights and access to public services. In the long term, liberalizing and simplifying channels of migration is conditional on the demand for migrant workers; but in addition ensuring their basic rights (i.e. non-discrimination, protection against forced labor, equal pay for equal work) is key in order to sustain equity.

Short Biography
Francisco Rodríguez is Senior Policy Advisor and Head of the Research Team of the Human Development Report Office. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and has held faculty positions at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración and Wesleyan University. From 2000 to 2004 he served as Chief Economist to the Venezuelan National Assembly. He has published more than forty research papers in economics and public policy publications including the Journal of Economic Growth, NBER Macroeconomics Annual, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Economics and Politics and Foreign Affairs.

The Social Policy Program of the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Middle East Technical University, UNDP and the World Bank Turkey Offices hosted Prof. Dr. François Bourguignon (Paris School of Economics), whose seminar was entitled "Social Policy in Times of Economic Downturns: Opportunities and Challenges". Prof. Bourguignon explained how social safety nets (SSN) act as insurance mechanisms during times of economic hardship and posed the question as to how effective and efficient safety nets can be constructed. Prof. Bourguignon reviewed several design features of such effective systems, including the positive and negative incentives they can create for work activity of beneficiaries. He provided several illustrations of successful SSN systems, including in Brazil where social policies contributed to reducing the high levels of inequality in the country. Prof. Bourguignon concluded that in times of crisis, SSN models for emerging market economies would depend on the degree of disparities (and poverty), the extent of informality in the economy as well as fiscal space available for their implementation.

Short Biography
François Bourguignon is currently the Director of Paris School of Economics. Prior to this position, Prof. Bourguignon served as the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for The World Bank between 2003 and 2007. In other past positions, he has worked both as a consultant and an academic in various universities in the world. Beside his distinctions from various economic societies and institutions, he has published many books, articles mainly on income distribution, inequality and poverty, redistribution, economic development.
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