Bjorn Gelders is a Senior Social Policy Specialist and Economist at Development Pathways, specialising in child poverty, inequality, vulnerability and social protection.

His areas of expertise include mixed-methods research design, statistical analysis, microsimulation and policy analysis. Bjorn has worked in more than 20 countries with governments, the UN and development agencies across Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He is a member of the DFAT Poverty and Social Protection Expert Panel and is regularly contracted to provide inputs and advice to the DFAT-funded MAKOTA Indonesia; the DFID-funded Capacity and Policy Development Facility (CPDF) in Rwanda; and the DFID-funded Expanding Social Protection (ESP) programme in Uganda.

He has supported the design and implementation of large-scale household surveys in countries such as South Africa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, and Vanuatu; has extensive experience in analysing census and survey micro-data; and authored a significant number of reports on impact, the SDGs, and poverty, including a Quantitative Impact Analysis of Uganda's Senior Citizens Grant, the SDG Baseline Report on Children in Indonesia, Global Goals for Every Child: Progress and Disparities Among Children in South Africa and contributing to the Realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals By, For and With Persons with Disabilities: UN Flagship Report on Disability and Development 2018.

Bjorn is also well-versed in conducting microsimulations of the cost and impact of social protection programmes to support policy and decision-making; and regularly delivers workshops and trainings for both technical and non-technical audiences.

Week 2: Why have so many low- and middle-income countries introduced poor relief - based on a 19th Century model - rather than building the type of modern social security systems we find in high-income countries?