Roumeen Islam is manager of the World Bank Institute's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Division. She is an economist by training and, I might add, by conviction. But to anybody who cares seriously about the role of the mass media in development, Roumeen is much admired in a particular capacity: as someone who has made a sterling contribution to how the media is viewed within international development. Although media systems and their impact on development are not the only things that have preoccupied her - right now she is leading major work on international trade indicators, amongst others - she has done as much as anybody I know to put an institutional view of the media on the development agenda.