Sylvia Scheurer is a visiting fellow in GMF’s Ukraine Cities Partnership, where she focuses on financing solutions for Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction. She is an independent consultant and adviser, and the founder of a Barcelona-based advisory practice specializing in innovative and sustainable finance for development. With more than 15 years of experience across the UN system, governments, and the private sector, she has advised partners such as UNICEF, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the UN Foundation, and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). She focuses on innovative financing instruments, blended finance, and public-private collaboration to support the transition from funding to financing. Scheurer co-authored UNICEF’s Global Innovative Finance for Children Strategy, contributed to the Fourth UN Financing for Development Conference (FfD4), and has led feasibility studies and advisory work on health financing across several African countries. She holds master’s degrees in international relations and in art history and philosophy and has given guest lectures and talks on development finance and innovation.
India
Sameer Lalwani is a Washington, DC-based non-resident senior fellow in GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. He is also senior adviser with the Special Competitive Studies Project, a nonresident senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and a research affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program. His research interests include deterrence, conventional military competition, technology alliances, and Indo-Pacific security. He is also a contributing editor to War on the Rocks.
Lalwani was previously a senior expert at the US Institute of Peace, where he led work sponsored by the US Department of Defense on the India-China battlespace (military strategy that integrates multiple armed forces into a theater of operation) and on US-India defense technology cooperation, including on INDUS-X. He was also director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center, an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Stanton Nuclear Security postdoctoral fellow at the RAND Corporation.
Lalwani’s work has been published in leading academic journals and analytical outlets. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Berkeley and a PhD from MIT.