He is a journalist with a legal background and experience in the communications media and in political campaigns. In 1995, he worked as Deputy Legal Representative in the Presidential Campaign of Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Secretary General of the United Nations. In 2001, he was part of the Presidential Campaign team of the current President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo. Between 2001 and 2005 he held different high positions in the Presidency of Peru: Press Secretary, Chief of the Staff and Advisor for Human Rights matters.

He was a journalist in Caretas, the main political magazine of Peru, during seven years. He also worked as a political advisor for important Members of Congress in Peru, like the former Prime Minister and current Peruvian Ombudswoman, Beatriz Merino, and the former Dean of the Lawyer’s Bar of Peru, Jorge Avendano, as well as of Anel Townsend, a current member of the Board of the Latin-American Parliament.

He completed the Program of Arts Studies and followed three years and a half of Law studies at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, and left these studies to begin his journalistic career. In August 1999 he founded the Association Prensa Libre,(Free Press) which denounced human rights violations and press harassment during the authoritarian regime of Alberto Fujimori in Peru. He presented those cases in the Interamerican Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS).
He has published two books: Los Escanos de Montesinos, Lima, Peru, 2001 and Auge y Caida de la Dictadura. Cronicas en defensa de la Democracia y los Derechos Humanos, Lima, Peru, 2005. He is studying at Maxwell School as a recipient of a de Sardon Glass scholarship, being a Candidate for an MA in Public Administration 2006.

Tamiko Hasegawa has worked as a Researcher and Professor of the Department of Economics at the Universidad del Pacifico in Lima-Peru. She participated in several research projects related to governance, development and macroeconomic topics, specifically designed to influence the policy process and oriented to increase the public transparency. During the last year, she has been the responsible of conducting the third edition of a comparative study on budget transparency with civil society organizations from 8 Latin American countries, and she has also taken care of the second edition of the Open Budget Questionnaire developed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to evaluate public access to budget information and involvement in the budget debate.

In addition, she has participated actively as a volunteer and social leader in Voluntades, a Peruvian civil association which mission is to design and perform projects that foment social responsibility, promote leadership and provide development tools to the persons affected for social exclusion. The institution expects to foster a dynamic social interaction among classes, which in turn would permit the construction of a common base for social and economic development in favor of all members in society.

Currently, Tamiko is studying a Master in Public Administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She received the Donald Flaherty Scholarship and works as Graduate Assistant for the Chair and Associate Dean Jeffrey Straussman in the analysis of public budget management in developing and transitional countries.

Javier E. Baez

Javier is from Colombia and has B.A. and M.A. degrees in economics from Universidad de los Andes (Bogota). In 2002 he was awarded a full scholarship from Harvard University to start a two years masters program in Public Administration and Development Economics at the Kennedy School of Government. After graduation, he moved to the Maxwell School to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. At the present he is a second year doctoral student and a research associate in the Center for Policy Research. His research interests include both applied program evaluation and the analysis of intra-household decisions in developing countries and their impact on fertility, labor supply, education, health, nutrition, migration and poverty.

Ruth Schwartz

Ruth is a planner for the Ministry of the Interior Planning Bureau in Haifa, Israel. Her responsibilities include regulative and initiative planning, preparation of professional opinions for the Regional Planning Committee and consultation with local planning committees. Ms. Schwartz earned a BA in Art History from Tel Aviv University and a Msc in Urban and Regional Planning from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. She will study at Maxwell as a Fulbright scholar and hopes to advance to a senior position in the Regional Planning Bureau and influence policy on the national level.