Diane is Emeritus Professor in sociology at the University of Essex, UK, and is a member of the Essex Human Rights Centre. She has served as adviser to UNIFEM, UNDP, Oxfam and other development agencies and is a past vice-president of the International Association for Feminist Economics. She is the chair of the UK women’s organization, the Women’s Budget Group, which analyses government economic policy and advocates for budgets that support gender equality and low income women. She publishes widely on gender and development. Her recent publications include: ‘Economic Policy and Human Rights: Holding Governments to Account’, co-edited with Radhika Balakrishnan, Zed Books, 2011; ‘Financial regulation, capabilities and human rights in the US financial crisis: the case of housing’, co-authored with Radhika Balakrishnan and James Heintz (Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 12 (I): 153-68, 2011);Budgeting for Women’s Rights; Monitoring Government Budgets for Compliance with CEDAW, UNIFEM, New York, 2006; ‘”Women’s rights are human rights”: campaigns and concepts’, in L. Morris (ed). Rights: Sociological Perspectives, Routledge, 2006; ‘Auditing economic policy in the light of obligations on economic and social rights’ (Essex Human Rights Review, 5(I), 2008); and ‘Gender equality and economic growth in the World Bank’ (World Development Report, 2006, Feminist Economics, 15 (3), 2009). Her academic degrees include a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in economics from the University of Manchester.