2007 Fred T. Foard, Jr. Memorial Lecture

by

John Briscoe, PhD
Country Director for Brazil for the World Bank

April 20, 2007

About the Webcast and Speaker:

Water management is one of the great challenges facing developing countries. On the one hand, growing economies need more water services – hydropower, irrigation and water for industry and people. On the other hand, surface and groundwater systems are already under great stress, and environmental quality is deteriorating. Climate change makes the challenge of water management even more daunting. In the 2007 Foard Lecture, Briscoe describes the progress that has been made and the daunting intellectual, policy and implementation challenges to be faced.

Briscoe, a former professor of water resources at UNC’s School of Public Health, is the World Bank Country Director for Brazil, one of the largest clients of the World Bank. Previously Briscoe was the Senior Water Adviser for the World Bank, with oversight responsibility for the Bank’s $40 billion portfolio of programs in water resources, irrigation, hydropower, and water and sanitation. Dr. Briscoe was principal author of the Bank’s 2003 Water Strategy and, more recently, has published books through Oxford University Press on the water economies of India and Pakistan.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Dr. Briscoe worked in the water ministries for the governments of South Africa and Mozambique and for the International Center for Diarrheal Diseases Research in Bangladesh. In addition to the United States, Dr. Briscoe has lived in his native South Africa, Bangladesh, Mozambique, India and Brazil. He speaks English, Afrikaans, Bengali, Portuguese and Spanish. Dr. Briscoe received a BSc in civil engineering from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in environmental engineering from Harvard University.

The Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture was established in 1969 by Dr. Foard’s widow, Elsie D. Foard, to honor him as a public health practitioner whose career spanned more than a half-century, much of it with the U.S. Public Health Service.


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