Germán Freire leads the implementation of the social inclusion agenda in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, particularly focusing on indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. He joined the Bank in 2012 and has worked since then on operational social development, applied research, and policy development in over 15 countries.

His analytic work at the Bank has been aimed at improving the voice and visibility of excluded groups, both in the design of development programs and in the strategic dialogue with the Bank and its client governments. He has led numerous reports that today guide the Bank’s operational work and inform its engagement with governments, academia, and indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations across the region. These include, among others, Indigenous Latin America in the Twenty-First Century (2016), Afro-descendants in Latin America: Toward a Framework of Inclusion (2018), and, more recently, Afro-descendant Inclusion in Education: an antiracist agenda for Latin America (2023).

Parallel to this analytic work, Germán leads high-level policy dialogue and World Bank operations aimed at overcoming various aspects of structural inequality and exclusion. These include, for example, Bank operations to improve the socioeconomic conditions and food security of indigenous and afro-descendant communities; statistical inclusion of ethnoracial minorities; post-conflict collective reparations; and support to enhance the effective participation of indigenous and local communities in climate action, among others.

Germán has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Oxford, and has published several books and journal articles on medical anthropology, human ecology, and development. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.