Inaugural Lecture Marleen Dekker as Professor of Inclusive Development in Africa

Marleen Dekker has been appointed Professor of Inclusive Development in Africa at the African Studies Centre of Leiden University. She will give her inaugural lecture on 9 October, when the new ASCL research programme and new ASCL professors are presented.

If you will only be attending Marleen Dekker's lecture, please register at the bottom of this page.

If you will be attending the full presentation of the new research programme, please register here.

Marleen Dekker is trained as a human geographer and holds a PhD in Development Economics. She is a hybrid researcher aiming to combine insights and methodologies from different disciplines as well as different backgrounds. She analyzes the role of social networks in accessing markets and local socio-economic development. The focus of her work is on access to formal and informal insurance networks, including community-based health insurance and intra-household resource sharing. She has co-organized several international events including a conference on micro-insurance, seminars on land reform in Zimbabwe, women's bargaining power and economic development, and social protection. She has collaborated in several international research projects in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Togo and Nigeria on social networks, insurance and marriage and intra-household issues.

In addition to her work as a senior researcher at the ASCL, Marleen Dekker is the coordinator of the Secretariat of INCLUDE, the Knowledge Platform on Inclusive Development Policies in Africa, that aims to promote the use of research evidence in policymaking on inclusive development. INCLUDE organizes international policy dialogues on inclusive development themes both in The Netherlands and in African countries.