About Me

A.H.J. (Bert) Helmsing is an Emeritus Professor of Local and Regional Development at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He earned his PhD (cum laude) in Economics from Tilburg University, focusing on the Processes of Regional, Urban, and Rural Change in Colombia. With nearly four decades of experience in development studies, he has provided education, capacity building, and policy advice on local and regional development in Latin America—particularly in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru—and Sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, and South Africa. Bert has published over 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals, contributed 39 chapters to edited volumes, and published or edited ten books. His specialization includes regional economic analysis, fiscal decentralization, meso-level economic analysis of firms, chains, clusters, and the roles of NGOs and social entrepreneurship in local economic development. Currently, his research is centered on studying local institutional change.