Speaker Biography

David Dror, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands

My interest in social security dates back to the mid-1970’s. My activity at that period yielded an innovative national solution to wage indexation (in the years of hyperinflation in Israel) and a comprehensive pension agreement, implemented all across the private sector.

My exposure to international issues came when I was appointed by the Federation of private-sector employers as their Delegate to the International Labour Conference (from 1977 to 1981), and later as an international civil servant working in the ILO (Geneva, from 1981 until April 2003). In the ILO I started as research officer, was then promoted to manage a UN in-house health insurance, which was my on-the-job “school of health insurance and health economics”. Beyond administration and people-management, this task required a re-think of the enabling means for accomplishment of the objectives of health insurance. I was on the steering group of a project to develop a Health Insurance Information System computer application, a huge task that lasted over two years (1995-1998) and well over a million US$, undertaken jointly with similar funds at WHO, UN Office in Geneva and CERN. From 1998, my work focused on applied health insurance research and in particular, on elaborating new pro-poor options for extension of access to health insurance in low-income countries. The most tangible result of this work has been the Social Re concept, which offers a new approach to sustainable community health financing. Since my retirement from ILO in April 2003, I engage in teaching, research and implementation of technical support to micro health insurance serving the poor. Currently I am the team-leader in two projects to implementing low-cost health insurance, one in South Africa (funded by HIVOS) and the other in India (funded by EU), the latter combining educational, research, policy advocacy and intervention components.