Namira Samir
My PhD research focuses on credit, capabilities and the market. I explore this issue through Islamic Microfinance in Indonesia. My PhD research is interdisciplinary by nature. It intersects with poverty, inequality, informality, and political economy.
I am passionate about researching and alleviating poverty; therefore, it is not a bizarre confession when I say I like to analyse and comment on policies and poverty alleviation interventions in developing countries. My opinions and commentaries have been featured in a number of national and international outlets, including The Jakarta Post, The World Financial Review, CeSPI – Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale, New Straits Times, Islamic Finance Review, and Islamic Finance News.
As a development economist, I use an interdisciplinary approach and mixed methods to understand poverty and inequalities. I have been working on poverty studies since 2017. Prior to LSE, I worked as a Researcher at the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), Office of Vice President of Indonesia. During her term of office, she studied the impact of Pro-Poor Budgeting on Poverty Reduction in 5 provinces in Indonesia. The results were documented in a book titled “Grounding Local Initiatives for Poverty Reduction Efforts.”
I also served as a Research Fellow at the Central Bank of Indonesia and concurrently as a Consultant for UNDP Indonesia, in which I worked on national and international-level poverty alleviation & Islamic finance projects.
I am sure that everything that has happened to me, including how I ended up working on poverty & inequality is the work of ‘fate,’ which might at first sound as approving of poverty itself as something that happens out of our control. But I have a different interpretation of ‘fate,’ which I try to narrate through my work.
I am happy to get involved with others that might benefit from my expertise through consultancy/research
Supervisors: Dr. David Lawson and Professor David Hulme
Address: Manchester, UK
I am passionate about researching and alleviating poverty; therefore, it is not a bizarre confession when I say I like to analyse and comment on policies and poverty alleviation interventions in developing countries. My opinions and commentaries have been featured in a number of national and international outlets, including The Jakarta Post, The World Financial Review, CeSPI – Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale, New Straits Times, Islamic Finance Review, and Islamic Finance News.
As a development economist, I use an interdisciplinary approach and mixed methods to understand poverty and inequalities. I have been working on poverty studies since 2017. Prior to LSE, I worked as a Researcher at the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), Office of Vice President of Indonesia. During her term of office, she studied the impact of Pro-Poor Budgeting on Poverty Reduction in 5 provinces in Indonesia. The results were documented in a book titled “Grounding Local Initiatives for Poverty Reduction Efforts.”
I also served as a Research Fellow at the Central Bank of Indonesia and concurrently as a Consultant for UNDP Indonesia, in which I worked on national and international-level poverty alleviation & Islamic finance projects.
I am sure that everything that has happened to me, including how I ended up working on poverty & inequality is the work of ‘fate,’ which might at first sound as approving of poverty itself as something that happens out of our control. But I have a different interpretation of ‘fate,’ which I try to narrate through my work.
I am happy to get involved with others that might benefit from my expertise through consultancy/research
Supervisors: Dr. David Lawson and Professor David Hulme
Address: Manchester, UK
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Papers by Namira Samir
This article aims to unwrap the role of data on the informal economy. More specifically, by looking at recent data innovation, the article criticised the growth narrative behind documenting the informal economy, which hinders improvement in informal actors' livelihood conditions. This article relies on the capability approach first developed by Amartya Sen (see: Sen, 1994, 2001, 2004) and later Martha Nussbaum (see: Nussbaum, 2003, 2011) to
evaluate the current usage of statistics to measure the magnitude and nature of the informal economy, in addition to elaborating the ‘ideal’ of how to define objectives of documenting the informal economy through data innovation.
Even by working from home, or even by “consuming” and not “producing”, we make an immense contribution to the economy. But has this been equally experienced across income groups?
Read my new article entitled “Growth that Celebrates Inequality” published in the September-October 2020 edition of The World Financial Review. I wrote about Indonesia’s recent upgrade to an upper-middle-income country which I think was overhyped, inequality in the 21st century, and the dark sides of innovation.
In this OpEd, I argue that the gig economy's unequal geography contributed to the spike in urban poverty in times of COVID-19. But what does this mean for rural areas? How should local and central governments respond?
I wrote this article when the R rate — the reproduction number of COVID-19, was declining. But now, cases are increasing worldwide, and Indonesia is no exception. If the trend continues, we will see a further disparity in terms of an increase in poverty cases between urban and rural areas — and if policymakers want to address that, they must pay more attention to the gig economy.
But what most of us have to do are simply sitting at home doing our duties remotely. Just imagine if we don't have that option. In this Opinion article that I wrote for The Jakarta Post, I voiced my concern about those who have fewer choices than what most of us have. The informal actors, who should be praised as economic heroes in the time of COVID-19 Pandemic. And returning their contributions can start as little as making them visible in our country's statistics
"Data unavailability prevents informed policy. But as clear as it gets, data also allows the act of saving lives"
When if you look really closely, you can learn about the life in poverty that still values dignity.
In this Op-Ed that I wrote for The Jakarta Post, I centred the analysis on Moon-gwang (the former housekeeper) and her husband, Geun Sae. The characters are so multifaceted that it even mimics the multidimensionality of poverty that cannot be alleviated with a single antidote.
and revenues in every fiscal year; Government disbursed the funds, poverty rate decreased, income inequality stayed volatile. Everything was in balance until the UN announces SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals, a joint agreement to make the world in its best possible form by 2030, without a single person living in less than 1.90 US Dollar a day. Now policymakers have been craving for a solution to realise this demanding
goal. Blockchain quickly intrudes into the life of many, including those sitting at the highest level of leadership. Sadly, many would think of it as a trivial revolution. Will time change our mind?
I then explained two underlying aspects of blockchain technology: smart contracts and digital identity, and how these two could help the Government achieve its development objectives.
The Government must be both a planner and a searcher. Identify what needs to be resolved and search for ways to resolve it.
Improving the quality of human resources needs to start from the bottom. Imagine the powerful impact it would create if the quality of human resources in the informal economy, which makes up 60% of the workforce of Indonesia, were escalated
This article aims to unwrap the role of data on the informal economy. More specifically, by looking at recent data innovation, the article criticised the growth narrative behind documenting the informal economy, which hinders improvement in informal actors' livelihood conditions. This article relies on the capability approach first developed by Amartya Sen (see: Sen, 1994, 2001, 2004) and later Martha Nussbaum (see: Nussbaum, 2003, 2011) to
evaluate the current usage of statistics to measure the magnitude and nature of the informal economy, in addition to elaborating the ‘ideal’ of how to define objectives of documenting the informal economy through data innovation.
Even by working from home, or even by “consuming” and not “producing”, we make an immense contribution to the economy. But has this been equally experienced across income groups?
Read my new article entitled “Growth that Celebrates Inequality” published in the September-October 2020 edition of The World Financial Review. I wrote about Indonesia’s recent upgrade to an upper-middle-income country which I think was overhyped, inequality in the 21st century, and the dark sides of innovation.
In this OpEd, I argue that the gig economy's unequal geography contributed to the spike in urban poverty in times of COVID-19. But what does this mean for rural areas? How should local and central governments respond?
I wrote this article when the R rate — the reproduction number of COVID-19, was declining. But now, cases are increasing worldwide, and Indonesia is no exception. If the trend continues, we will see a further disparity in terms of an increase in poverty cases between urban and rural areas — and if policymakers want to address that, they must pay more attention to the gig economy.
But what most of us have to do are simply sitting at home doing our duties remotely. Just imagine if we don't have that option. In this Opinion article that I wrote for The Jakarta Post, I voiced my concern about those who have fewer choices than what most of us have. The informal actors, who should be praised as economic heroes in the time of COVID-19 Pandemic. And returning their contributions can start as little as making them visible in our country's statistics
"Data unavailability prevents informed policy. But as clear as it gets, data also allows the act of saving lives"
When if you look really closely, you can learn about the life in poverty that still values dignity.
In this Op-Ed that I wrote for The Jakarta Post, I centred the analysis on Moon-gwang (the former housekeeper) and her husband, Geun Sae. The characters are so multifaceted that it even mimics the multidimensionality of poverty that cannot be alleviated with a single antidote.
and revenues in every fiscal year; Government disbursed the funds, poverty rate decreased, income inequality stayed volatile. Everything was in balance until the UN announces SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals, a joint agreement to make the world in its best possible form by 2030, without a single person living in less than 1.90 US Dollar a day. Now policymakers have been craving for a solution to realise this demanding
goal. Blockchain quickly intrudes into the life of many, including those sitting at the highest level of leadership. Sadly, many would think of it as a trivial revolution. Will time change our mind?
I then explained two underlying aspects of blockchain technology: smart contracts and digital identity, and how these two could help the Government achieve its development objectives.
The Government must be both a planner and a searcher. Identify what needs to be resolved and search for ways to resolve it.
Improving the quality of human resources needs to start from the bottom. Imagine the powerful impact it would create if the quality of human resources in the informal economy, which makes up 60% of the workforce of Indonesia, were escalated
A book that you can finish in less than a single hour.