Mobilizing Climate Financing and Ensuring Financial Stability―How Can Asia Pacific Respond to Climate Finance Risks?

Agnes Surry joined the Asian Development Bank Institute in September 2022. She is seconded from ADB, where she worked in the Strategy, Policy, and Partnerships Department for more than 6 years. She supported policy work including country classification processes to determine access to concessional finance and reforms to provide better solutions to ADB developing member countries. She led the replenishment of the Asian Development Fund 13 in 2020, which is the main ADB grant facility. Prior to joining ADB, she worked at the African Development Bank as a resource mobilization expert and at the Treasury of France as a social economist and policy analyst. She has a master’s degree in international economics (development) and bachelor’s degrees in econometrics and social sciences from Sciences Po Paris and École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France.

Tetsushi Sonobe’s research interests center on the empirics of economic development, particularly the roles of industrial clusters, human capital, social capital, management practices, and market competition in industrial development in developing Asia and other regions. He obtained his PhD in economics from Yale University and his BA in economics from the University of Tokyo.

Sayuri Shirai is advisor for sustainable policies at the the Asian Development Bank Institute. She is currently a professor of economics under Keio University’s faculty of policy management. She is also an advisor to both the Nomura Research Center for Sustainability and the Nissin Oillio Group. From 2020-2021, she was a senior advisor to London-based EOS at Federated Hermes, which provides environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related stewardship services on firms and public policy. Prior to that, she was an ADBI visiting fellow from 2016-2020 and a member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan from 2011-2016. She has published extensively on topics such as central bank digital currency, monetary policy, global finance, and ESG investment. She holds a PhD in economics from Columbia University.

Seungju Baek has 30 years of economic and development policy experience, having served as deputy minister for planning and coordination at the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Korea. His capacity building and training interests include growth for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific. He earned his PhD in public policy from Korea University.

Bruno Carrasco leads ADB-wide knowledge, innovation, policies, and strategies in all thematic areas. He also oversees the administration of trust funds and global funding initiatives and provides advice to management on strategic, operations, and policy matters. He has over 26 years of experience at ADB. He has also worked for the United Nations Development Program and was on leave from 2000 to 2003 working at the European Central Bank. He holds a doctorate degree in Economics from the University of Essex.