# Dan Banik

Dan Banik is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Oslo SDG Initiative at the Center for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo. Outside of Norway he holds a position as an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.

## Career

Banik is a part of several projects at the University of Oslo and in collaboration with other universities outside of Norway. Mostly the projects revolve around development and governance in Africa and Asia. Recently, in October 2023, as the Director of the Oslo SDG Initiative he hosted the 27th Wider Annual Lecture, in partnership with UNU-WIDER, in Oslo, where Pinelopi Goldberg, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, held a lecture.
From 2012 to 2017 he was an adjunct professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing and he held several positions at Stanford University between 2010 and 2017. Between 2014 and 2017, Banik was a Consulting Scholar at Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Stanford University, focusing his research on Malawi and Zambia.
Banik has worked with the World Bank as well where he served as the head of the Norwegian-Finnish Trust Fund. Additionally, he sat on the board of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess' Foundation, a foundation that focuses on the support and empowerment of young individuals in Norway.
The Norwegian Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, appointed Banik to be a part of an expert group that created a report, in 2023, for the Norwegian government concerning finance and development measures to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. Banik was also, previously, the supervisor for the Minister when she wrote her master's thesis.
In Pursuit of Development is a podcast hosted by Banik where he discusses development issues and topics such as poverty eradication, democracy and climate change with other leading experts and academics. The professor is often referred to as an expert on the topics himself, and is regularly interviewed to give expert opinion in Norwegian media. Banik's podcast reaches a world-wide audience with listeners from more than 140 countries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Banik created online courses about sustainability that were published through University of Oslo's website which attracted more than 12,000 students from all over the world.

## Selected publications
### Books

* Chinsinga, Blessings; Dan Banik, eds. (2016-06-22). Political Transition and Inclusive Development in Malawi: The democratic dividend. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315683898. ISBN 978-1-315-68389-8.
* Banik, Dan, ed. (2016-11-15). The Legal Empowerment Agenda: Poverty, Labour and the Informal Economy in Africa. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315238739. ISBN 978-1-315-23873-9.
* Banik, Dan (2010). Poverty and elusive development. Oslo: Universitetsforl. ISBN 978-82-15-01218-6.
* McNeish, John-Andrew; Robbins, Edward; Nielsen, Kenneth; Brøther, Mona Elisabeth (2008). Banik, Dan (ed.). Rights and legal empowerment in eradicating poverty. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-7498-6.
* Banik, Dan (2007). Starvation and India's democracy. Routledge advances in South Asian studies (1. publ ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-96288-6.
* Banik, Dan (2006). Poverty, politics and development: interdisciplinary perspectives (1. Aufl ed.). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. ISBN 978-82-450-0397-0.

### Journal articles

* Biermann, Frank; Sun, Yixian; Banik, Dan; Beisheim, Marianne; Bloomfield, Michael J.; Charles, Aurelie; Chasek, Pamela; Hickmann, Thomas; Pradhan, Prajal; Sénit, Carole-Anne (2023-09-15). "Four governance reforms to strengthen the SDGs". Science. 381 (6663): 1159–1160. Bibcode:2023Sci...381.1159B. doi:10.1126/science.adj5434. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 37708286. S2CID 261736542.
* Banik, Dan; Mawdsley, Emma (May 2023). "South–South Cooperation and global development in a multipolar world: China and India in Africa". Journal of International Development. 35 (4): 539–548. doi:10.1002/jid.3789. ISSN 0954-1748. S2CID 258545369.
* Banik, Dan (July 2022). "Democracy and Sustainable Development". Anthropocene Science. 1 (2): 233–245. doi:10.1007/s44177-022-00019-z. ISSN 2731-3980. PMC 9051790.
* Kayuni, Happy; Banik, Dan; Chunga, Joseph J. (2021-11-11). "The perils of megaphone diplomacy on Malawi's ambitious Shire- Zambezi Waterway project". Africa Review. 13 (2): 270–289. doi:10.1080/09744053.2021.1943265. ISSN 0974-4053. S2CID 235769638.
* Banik, Dan; Chasukwa, Michael (December 2019). "The Politics of Hunger in an SDG Era: Food Policy in Malawi". Food Ethics. 4 (2): 189–206. doi:10.1007/s41055-019-00055-3. ISSN 2364-6853. S2CID 213049151.
* Banik, Dan; Bull, Benedicte (2018-07-04). "Chinese engagement in Africa and Latin America: does it matter for state capacity?". Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal. 3 (4): 532–551. doi:10.1080/23802014.2018.1531682. hdl:10852/72575. ISSN 2380-2014. S2CID 158115920.

## Personal life

Banik is married to Vibeke Kieding Banik, who also works at the University of Oslo.