Ladislau Dowbor, graduated in political economy at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; PhD in Economic Sciences at the Central School of Planning and Statistics in Warsaw, Poland (1976). He is currently a full professor of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, in the areas of economics and management. He also works as a consultant for several United Nations agencies, governments and municipalities, also working as an adviser for a number of non-governmental organizations.

His main area of expertise is organizing economic and social development strategies. In the 1970s, during the military dictatorship in Brazil, he was a professor of public finance at the University of Coimbra. At the invitation of Minister Vasco Cabral, he became technical coordinator of the Ministry of Planning of Guinea-Bissau (1977-81).

He was a consultant to the UN Secretary General in the area of Special Political Affairs (1980-81). He directed several economic management projects, as Chief Technical Advisor for United Nations projects, particularly in Equatorial Guinea, Nicaragua, South Africa and others. He is a consultant to several governments, particularly for the organization of decentralized systems of economic and social management (Costa Rica, Ecuador, South Africa, Mongolia, China).

In the 1989-92 period, he was Secretary of Extraordinary Affairs in the Mayor’s office of the City of São Paulo, in charge of the city policies for environment, community organizations and international relations. During the President Lula administration he was a consultant in decentralized development strategy, as well as social inclusion strategy.

He is the author and co-author of over 50 books and numerous technical studies. Among major books, he published Formação do Capitalismo no Brasil (Brasiliense), Formação do Terceiro Mundo (Brasiliense), Economic Democracy (Lambert Academic Publishing), O que é poder local? (Brasiliense), The Broken Mosaic: for an economics beyond equations (Zed Books), A Reprodução Social (Editora Vozes), The Age of Unproductive Capital (Cambridge Scholars), Beyond Capitalism: new social architectures (Cambridge Scholars, 2021).

Over the past few years, he has worked on the development of decentralized management systems, particularly within the framework of municipal administrations, involving information systems, municipal employment policies, integrated policies for children at risk and environmental management. Lately he has been working on the financialization process in Brazil and other countries, particularly on the issues of restoring community control over local finance.

Dowbor manages an open access scientific website with around 1500 books, papers and technical studies on economic and social development issues, https://dowbor.org. The website has become an important source for consultations and scientific interchange for Brazil and research centers in other countries.