Santiago Levy, BU Econ BA, MA, and PhD grad, to be named 2023 BU Distinguished Alum
Santiago Levy is a “triple threat” with a BA, MA, and PhD all from BU Economics. He will be named a BU Distinguished Alum, BU’s highest alumni honor, at Alumni Weekend on September 23.
Santiago played a crucially important role in the development of one of the leading antipoverty programs in the world based on the concept of conditional cash transfers (CCT), an innovative approach that had significant effects on reducing poverty in Mexico. He first introduced and oversaw the implementation of PROGRESA (later renamed Oportunidades) when he was Deputy Finance Minister of Mexico. Since then, CCT programs have spread to dozens of countries around the world, including Brazil, Chile, Honduras, Jamaica, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Peru, and Cambodia.
Santiago Levy is currently a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution and a member of the board of various development organizations. Before that, he was Vice-president at the Inter-American Development Bank, General Director of Mexico’s Social Security Institute, deputy minister at Mexico’s Ministry of Finance, and President of Mexico’s Federal Competition Commission. He was also named Distinguished Alumni of the BU Department of Economics in 2014, the award’s inaugural year.
To see more about Santiago and the award, see here.