Developing Economies with Human Capital
August 16, 2004
Mr. Damian von Stauffenberg, President of EICEE

Damian von Stauffenberg, a German national, is the president of the Educational Initiative for Central and Eastern Europe. He is an expert in international finance and developing nations. Mr. von Stauffenberg built up 25 years of experience at the World Bank and its private sector affiliate, International Finance Corporation, before founding MicroRate a rating agency for microfinance institutions.

Drawing upon this experience as well as over ten years of experience with the situation in post-Communist Russia, Mr. von Stauffenberg addressed over 70 graduate students who had assembled at Castle Neuwaldegg for the Neuwaldegg Summer Seminar 2004. He demonstrated the impossibility of rejuvenating an economy with nothing but foreign aid; the most important resource, the human capital, must be built up from within.

In addition to his other commitments, Mr. von Stauffenberg serves on a variety of microlending funds and committees, such as ProFund a fund investing in the equity of Latin American microlenders, and Seed Capital Development Foundation (SCDF) an organization dedicated to linking microlenders to commercial funding sources.