Better Education for Stronger Growth in Europe and Central Asia

Antonella Bassani is Vice President of the Europe and Central Asia Region at the World Bank. In this position, Antonella leads the World Bank's strategic, financing and knowledge work for this region. Antonella has held several senior leadership positions in the World Bank, including most recently as Vice President for Budget, Performance Review and Strategic Planning. Prior to that she was responsible for overseeing operations in two regions as Director for Strategy and Operations (East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa), providing leadership and support to regional teams in the delivery of high-quality strategies and operations, flexible and innovative financing, and knowledge services. She also played a leading role in the innovative and strategic mobilization of Bank resources, including two successful replenishments for the lnternational Development Association.

Dan Perciun is the Minister of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova. He has been a member of the Parliament since 2019. Most recently Dan was a Head of the e-Transformation Department at the Ministry of Education and a senior consultant with Civitta Moldova. He has in-depth knowledge of the education and IT sector having worked with national governmental authorities, international institutions and local NGOs. Dan has hands-on experience both in the public and private sector, worked on development strategies, market analyses, and business process analyses for local companies. He has a degree from Cambridge University. 

Julia Wörz is Head of the Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe Section at the Economics Analysis and Research Department since 2015 and one of four Diversity Officers of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB). Her main responsibilities are coordinating the OeNB’s economic analysis, monitoring and macrofinancial risk assessment activities concerning Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries and providing in-depth analysis of CESEE related topics. In addition to her duties at OeNB, she is teaching European monetary policy at the University of Innsbruck. Prior to joining the OeNB in May 2008, she had been staff economist at The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) since 2001. At the wiiw, she was involved in various research projects and (co)organized a range of workshops as well as the biweekly wiiw seminar series on “International Economics.”

Rita K. Almeida is a Manager with the World Bank's Education Global Practice, covering the Europe and Central Asia region. In this position, Rita oversees the human development program across the six countries. Since joining the World Bank in 2002, Rita has held different positions including Senior Economist in the Education and in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practices, and Economist in the Development Economics Research Group. During this tenure, Rita served as the Bank skills global lead and managed lending and analytical work across Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa. Most recently, she served as Practice Manager for the Latin America and the Caribbean Region.

Ivailo Izvorski is the Chief Economist for the Europe and Central Asia region. He assumed this position on December 1, 2022. Since joining the World Bank in 2005 as a Senior Country Economist for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management sector Unit, he has held various positions — including Lead Economist and Practice Manager in Europe and Central Asia, and his most recent assignment as Practice Manager for the Global Macro, Growth and Debt unit in the Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment (MTI) Global Practice.

Carolin Geginat is the Country Manager for Armenia at the World Bank. Since 2003, she has held several positions at the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Carolin served most recently as the World Bank Lead Economist for Eastern and Southern Africa and before that as Program Leader for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions in Southern Africa. She joined the World Bank in 2003 to work on delivering debt relief to African countries under the Highly Indebted and Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative. She later became a researcher for the Bank’s Doing Business Report team and served as its Co-Manager until 2014, when she joined the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department. Between 2016 and 2020, Carolin was leading the World Bank’s lending and advisory work for Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius and the Seychelles.