Manuel F. Montes (“Butch”) is Chief, Policy Analysis and Development Branch at Financing for Development Office of UNDESA. Immediately before this, he was Regional Programme Coordinator, Asia Pacific Trade and Investment Initiative, UNDP Regional Centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka—an initiative that seeks to assist developing countries in Asia Pacific incorporate poverty reduction objectives in their trade policies and negotiations. His previous posts were: Programme Officer for International Economic Policy at the Ford Foundation in New York, 1999–2005; Senior Fellow and Coordinator for economics studies at the East-West Centre in Honolulu, 1989–1999; and Associate Professor of economics at the University of The Philippines, 1981–1989. He has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Developing Economies in Tokyo, at the United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/IWDER) in Helsinki, and at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). His most recent publication is Poverty and Well-Being in Asia during the Transition (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003). Butch holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University. He held the Central Bank Money and Banking Chair at the University of the Philippines from 1984 to 1991.