Robert P. Beschel Jr. is currently the Global Lead for the World Bank’s Center of Government Practice. 

He has written extensively on policy coordination and worked on Center of Government issues in a number of countries.  In 2010, he was recruited by the Office of Tony Blair and the Government of Kuwait to serve as Deputy Director for Policy (and subsequently as Acting Director for Policy) in the newly created Technical and Advisory Office (TAO) of the Prime Minister. 

In addition to his work on the center of government, Dr. Beschel coordinates the Global Governance Practice’s country programming efforts.  He previously managed the Governance Systems Unit and headed the Governance & Public Accountability Cluster within the Bank’s Public Sector Anchor, which was responsible for overseeing the Bank’s global practice on issues of governance, anticorruption, political economy analysis, revenue mobilization and expenditure rationalization, and transparency and right to information among other topics.  He headed the Secretariat for the Governance and Anticorruption (GAC) Council—the body that oversees the World Bank’s practice on issues of governance, integrity and anticorruption. 

He oversaw the World Bank’s work on governance and public sector management in the Middle East and North Africa region from 2004-2010 and served as the principal author for the Asian Development Bank’s Anticorruption Strategy in 1998.

He has worked on public sector reform in over fifty countries and authored a number of books, reports, articles and other publications on issues of governance, public financial management, civil service and administrative reform and anti-corruption.

Dr. Beschel has a Masters degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Masters and Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard’s Government Department.