Vinayak (Vinny) Nagaraj is the World Bank’s Senior Country Economist for Ethiopia. Prior to this, he was the Bank’s Senior Country Economist for Uzbekistan, overseeing a series of large development policy operations and analytical engagements in support of Uzbekistan’s ambitious market transition.
Before joining the World Bank in 2018, Vinny was the New Zealand Government’s chief development economist, based in the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In this role, he managed New Zealand’s overseas aid investments and policy dialogue with governments in the areas of economic policy and institutional reform, governance, and trade. He also served as New Zealand’s lead negotiator on the Addis Ababa (Financing for Development) Action Agenda, New Zealand’s deputy representative on the G20 Development Working Group in 2014, and as a member of the Financial Stability Board’s Remittances Task Force between 2017-2018.
Between 2011 and 2013, Vinny worked for the New Zealand Treasury, where he led the establishment of New Zealand’s macroprudential policy framework and served as a fiscal policy adviser to the Government. He has also worked as an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Fellow with the Zambian Ministry of Finance as the head of the Macroeconomic Policy Unit, and as a deputy director for balance of payments and macroeconomics at the (Central) Bank of Guyana.
Vinny holds a master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Loyola College, India.