Dr. Liesbet Steer is Director of the Education Commission. In this role, she led the report “The Learning Generation. Investing in Education for a Changing World.” Currently, she oversees the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations, including the design of the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd), the introduction of reform and results based approaches in Pioneer Countries, a new Education Workforce Initiative and the development of global accountability measures. She has more than 20 years of experience in international development research and policy.

Before joining the Commission, Liesbet was a Fellow at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and Director of the Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI) flagship program on Development Progress, financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a fellow of ODI’s Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure, she also worked on issues of development finance, aid effectiveness, and the production and use of impact evaluations. Between 1997 and 2007, Liesbet lived and worked in Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos and Cambodia. She directed the economic reform program for the Asia Foundation in Indonesia, a technical assistance and research program on local economic development and growth. She also worked with the World Bank and IFC on private sector reform and the design and evaluation of SME development programs in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Liesbet has written widely on development finance and education, and presented in a wide range of fora and advisory panels. She was educated at the Universities of Antwerp and East Anglia, and the London School of Economics. She holds a M.Sc. in Quantitative Economics, and Ph.D. in Development Economics.