Ramon E. Daubon

Dr. Daubon is Director of the Civil Society Task Force for the Esquel Group Foundation.as well as Vice President of EGF. His current post is Vice President of the Inter American Foundation. Previously he acted as an Associate of the Kettering Foundation and Executive Director of the Caribbean Environment and Development Institute in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Latin America, and the Caribbean and Representative of the Ford Foundation for the Andean and Southern Cone Countries of South America. A native of Puerto Rico, he holds a PhD in Economic Development from the University of Pittsburgh. He has written extensively on the relationship between democracy and development, with particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. His recent publications include “A primer for promoting deliberative democracy and the dynamics of development at the grassroots”, Journal of Public Deliberation (Vol. 1 Issue. 1 Art. 4, 2005) ; “Dialogue for Development”, in Kettering Review Vol. 22.1, Spring 2004; Capital Social, (R. Daubon and Alfredo Carrasquillo Centro de Investigación y Política Pública (CIPP); San Juan, Puerto Rico (2002) and R.Daubon and Harold S. Saunders, “De-construction of Social Capital: A Strategy to Enhance Communities’ Capacity to Concert”, in International Studies Perspectives. (May, 2002).

Stahis S. Panagides

Stahis S. Panagides was recently appointed as Country Director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Cape Verde. Previously he served as President and Vice-President of the Esquel Group Foundation, having been one of its founders. He is also Co-founder and Chairman of INOVA International, Inc, an Internet technology company based in São Paulo, Brazil. Previously, Dr. Panagides worked for the Ford Foundation and the University of California ( Berkeley ) in Brazil and was Director of the Social Development Department of the Organization of American States. He was Representative of the World Bank in Northeastern Brazil, where he established the World Bank's first field office in that country. He has undertaken a variety of consulting assignments in Latin America , Africa , and the Middle East on behalf of international development agencies including the World Bank, OAS, IFAD, and USAID. He served as special adviser to ARIDAS, a Brazilian project that engaged municipal, state, and federal government agencies and NGOs for developing a sustainable development strategy for the Northeast of Brazil. He is co-editor of the book Climate Variability, Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the Semi-Arid Tropics (Cambridge University Press, 1996) that is the result of work by Esquel. A native of Cyprus , Dr. Panagides holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Iowa State University , and Masters and Bachelors degrees from Kansas State University .

Kenneth H. Cole

Kenneth H. Cole was President of Esquel Group Foundation until July 2000. As such he directed EGF's efforts to build institutions of civil society and enable citizen participation in Latin America . He is particularly interested in implementation of civil society initiatives deriving from the Western Hemisphere Summit Process. He has extensive experience with programs for micro enterprise and NGO development. Mr. Cole worked for 27 years at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Beginning in 1979, he directed the IDB's unique and innovative Small Projects Program, through which lending is provided directly to organizations of low-income people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean for productive projects that increase income and generate employment. In this capacity, Mr. Cole represented the IDB at numerous international events, managed special trust funds, and negotiated arrangements with senior government officials, private sector leaders, foreign assistance personnel, and directors of local organizations. Before joining the IDB, Mr. Cole worked for the Export-Import Bank and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador . He has served as a volunteer with many civic organizations and is on the Board or Advisory Committee of several NGOs dealing with civil society and environmental issues. He received a J.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and maintains membership in the Bar Associations of California and the District of Columbia .

Patricia Weis Fagen

Patricia Weiss Fagen is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University , where she conducts research and teaches courses on post-conflict reintegration and reconstruction. She has worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Research Institute for Social Development, and the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank. Dr. Fagen has a Ph.D. from Stanford University and has published a number of works related to Latin American history, human rights law and policy, political asylum and refugee issues, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Carlos Garramón

Carlos Garramón, an Uruguayan, is a founding member of the Esquel Group Foundation. He served as the Vice President of the Grupo Esquel Network's Regional Board from 1992 to 1994 and has been an active member of Grupo Esquel Argentina and Grupo Esquel Uruguay . He edited the Grupo Esquel-UN Development Programme book entitled Growth with Equity: Analysis and Proposals for the Southern Cone of Latin America. Mr. Garramón is the founder and President of Promesur, a development, trade, and investment consulting firm based in Montevideo , Uruguay . He also is currently under contract to the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) as regional coordinator of a project on trade and economic integration in the Southern Cone. Between 1986 and 1992, Mr. Garramón was the Resident Representative of IICA in Argentina . During the same period, he served as Technical Advisor to the Argentine Minister of Agriculture on a rural development program sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Prior to joining IICA, he was Project Controller for the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome , where he was responsible for Latin American operations. Previously, Mr. Garramón headed an Organization of American States (OAS) mission to formulate an integrated rural development program in Honduras . Mr. Garramón is an agricultural engineer by training. He holds Masters degrees in Agricultural Economics from Catholic University in Chile and the University of California-Berkeley . He has published widely on rural poverty and agricultural development.

Roberto S. Mizrahi

Roberto S. Mizrahi, an Argentine economist and business investor, is a founding member of the Grupo Esquel network. He served as President of the network’s Regional Board from 1991-1994, when he was elected President Emeritus. He is the founder and Chairman of the South0North Development Initiative (SNDI), based in New York , President of Sur Norte Inversión y Desarrollo based in Buenos Aires , Argentina , and co-editor of OPINION SUR. He has served as President of RAFAD, a Swiss-based foundation specializing in alternative development financing. Mr. Mizrahi has held two posts in the Inter-American Development Bank, first as Senior Policy Advisor and later as Advisor for Special Projects. During his tenure at the IDB, he conducted research and authored numerous articles on micro enterprise and the informal sector, rural development, and credit and finance. He also has undertaken various assignments in these fields for the World Bank and UN Development Programme. Previously, Mr. Mizrahi acted as project chief, planner, and consultant to the Ecuadorian government and the OAS on rural and urban development programs. From 1969 to 1974, he served as Division Chief in the Planning Ministry of Argentina. Mr. Mizrahi received a Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from PIAPUR in Peru and conducted doctoral studies in Economics at the University of London . He has been a visiting professor at universities in Venezuela , Colombia , Ecuador , Brazil , Egypt , Argentina , Peru and Costa Rica .

Marisol Pagés

Marisol Pagés is currently Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for New Business of Grupo Pages, a holding company which owns several businesses in the Dominican Republic , the most important of which is Pagés/BBDO, one of the top five advertising agencies in the country. As a member of the Board of the Agency, she also oversees the company's corporate responsibility activities, primarily the Crime Prevention Campaign (Campana de Promocion de la Seguridad Ciudadana in Spanish). She previously held the position of General Coordinator of the Program to Promote Corporate Social Investment, an IDB-sponsored project of the CONEP (umbrella business association) in that country. Until December 2000 she was Executive Director of the Esquel Group Foundation, the US-based member of Grupo Esquel, a network of foundations that promote economic development and democratization throughout Latin America and the Caribbean . Ms. Pagés has a Bachelors Degree, cum laude, in Economics and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison , where she also received the Hillman Research Fellowship for field research in Argentina (1992) and the William Bryan Jennings Award for best undergraduate honors thesis of the UW (1993). She also has a Masters Degree in International Economics from American University in Washington , DC .

Sílvio R. Sant'Ana

Sílvio R. Sant'Ana, a Brazilian, is Executive Secretary of Fundação Grupo Esquel Brasil (FGEB) where he has directed programs to combat rural poverty and desertification, address the needs of youth at risk, promote a better legal and regulatory environment for civil society in Brazil , and create the Brazilian Network of Information and Documentation on Infancy and Adolescence (REBIDIA). Under his leadership FGEB has organized several major regional and international events, including the International Conference on the Impact of Climate in Semi-Arid Regions (1992) and the National Conference on Desertification/Latin American Seminar on Desertification (March 1994), in Ceará, Brazil. Mr. Sant'Ana is also President of the Grupo Esquel Network's Regional Board and a member of the Board of the Esquel Group Foundation, of which he is a founder. Prior to his full-time involvement with Grupo Esquel, Mr. Sant'Ana was Coordinator for International Cooperation of INCRA, Brazil 's Agrarian Reform Agency. Previously, he was an economist with the Organization of American States, specializing in the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems for socially-oriented projects, including agricultural policy, planning and development, project design and management, institutional analysis, and training. He taught Economic Theory and researched rural economics at the University of Viçosa-MG in Brazil . Mr. Sant'Ana holds a Masters degree in Agricultural Development and Planning from the University of Paris , where he also conducted Doctoral studies.

Ana Margarita Tenorio

Ana Margarita Tenorio is a Program Associate for the Esquel Group Foundation in Washington , D.C. She is also a Research Associate for the Kettering Foundation in Dayton , Ohio and a Management Analyst for the Inter-American Foundation in Washington , DC , USA . Previously, she held several positions in the private sector, such as Director for Human Resources at Credomatic Bank in Honduras and Director for Acquisition Projects at Management Acquisition Group in Puerto Rico . She also worked as a Social Psychologist designing training programs for women cooperatives in Southern Honduras and conducting research with street-kids in Tegucigalpa , Honduras . She worked as Program Coordinator for the Children’s Environmental Health Network, a U.S. based NGO whose mission is to protect children from environmental health hazards. Mrs. Tenorio has a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from the University of Honduras where she graduated with honors. She also has two Masters Degrees, one in International Development Management and one in Public Administration from American University in Washington , DC , where she graduated with honors. Mrs. Tenorio is currently the recipient of the prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship and is writing a book on mechanisms to increase donors civic investing.