John W. McArthur is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. He is also a senior adviser to the UN Foundation and a board governor for the International Development Research Centre. He serves as a member of the UNICEF Advisory Group and of Policy Horizons Canada’s Deputy Minister Steering Committee. In 2018 he co-founded the “17 Rooms” initiative as a new approach to catalyzing action for the Sustainable Development Goals.
He was previously the chief executive officer of Millennium Promise, the international nongovernmental organization. Prior to that he served as manager and then deputy director of the UN Millennium Project, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s independent advisory body mandated to recommend an action plan for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. In that role he helped to launch global MDG policy efforts, coordinating an international network of nearly 300 experts who served on ten thematic task forces. He also oversaw a policy team that provided integrated technical advice to governments in low-income countries around the world and served as lead editor of the project’s final report, “Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”
John grew up in Vancouver and is a Canadian citizen. He completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) at the University of British Columbia; a master’s in Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and then an M.Phil. and D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in economics at Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.
Read more via the Brookings Institution website.
Jan 19 2021 Blog Post Let the Great Transition Begin Given the scale and shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is understandable that many leaders would seek a rapid return to the status quo ante. But now that vaccines have created a long-awaited opportunity to build anew, re-creating the conditions that led to the crises of 2020 would be a mistake. With Covid-19 vaccinations underway […]
Jun 19 2020 Blog Post Rebuilding Towards the Great Reset: Crisis, Covid-19, and the Sustainable Development Goals The year 2020 will forever be associated with crises. First came the Covid-19 pandemic, a joint public health and economic emergency that spread around the world with unprecedented speed and scope. Next came a crisis of international cooperation, as countries struggled to coordinate their efforts in tackling a common viral foe. Then came a compounding […]