Uma Lele (born 28 August 1941; Koregaon, Satara, India) was an agricultural economist, notably at the Institute of Economic Growth at the University of Delhi, India. She spent much of her career working with the World Bank and other international organizations. Through her field research and work on operations, policy analysis, and evaluation, Lele assessed the impact of development assistance. She worked in areas around the world, including in China, India and Africa. Her work improved interventions, such as the World Bank's Forest Strategy (2002), and the work of CGIAR. Lele was elected a Fellow of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association in 1999. In July 2018 Uma Lele became president-elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. In 2021 she became their president (a three-year term), the first woman to hold that position.
Early life and education Uma Lele was born on 28 August 1941 in Koregaon, Satara, India and grew up in the state of Maharashtra. Her father was a lawyer and a judge. She completed her B.A. at Ferguson College, Pune University in 1960. After marrying Jayant Lele, a PhD student at Cornell University, Uma Lele joined the master's program in the economics department at the University of Chicago. After a year working in Chicago with Theodore Schultz, she was able to transfer to Cornell, receiving a joint scholarship from the College of Agriculture (CALS) and the College of Arts and Sciences. Uma Lele earned her MS in 1963, and her PhD in 1965 from Cornell University in agricultural economics. She was the first woman to graduate from Cornell University with a PhD in applied economics.
Career After graduating, Lele lived in Canada and carried out field research in India on grain markets. In 1971, she was hired by the World Bank and began studying areas in South Asia and Africa. She worked on her book The Design of Rural Development: Lessons From Africa (1975) as a visiting professor at Cornell (1973–1974), returning to the World Bank in 1974 and remaining there until 1990. In 1991 Lele become a graduate research professor and director of international studies at the University of Florida, where she spent four years (1991–1995). In addition she worked as the Director of the Global Development Initiative at the Carter Center from 1992 to 1993. In 1995 Lele returned to the World Bank, where she became a senior advisor in the organization's Operations Evaluation Department (later the Independent Evaluation Group). In 2005 Lele retired from the World Bank. She continues to do research, write and lecture as a visiting researcher with the Institute of Economic Growth at the University of Delhi. Lele has strongly supported the empowerment of women, helping to organize the First Global Conference for Women in Agriculture (GCWA) held in 2012. She has established a Mentor Fellowship Award for Women through the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and a Best Research Award on Gender in Development through the International Association of Agricultural Economists.
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