World Development Report 2023

Xavier Devictor is the Co-Director for the World Development Report 2023. He was previously Manager in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence Group at the World Bank, where he was leading strategic, analytical, and operational work on forced displacement. Xavier joined the World Bank as a Young Professional and has broad operational experience across regions, including as Country Manager for Poland and the Baltic Countries. He has worked in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. Earlier in his career, Xavier worked for UNHCR in the former Yugoslavia, where he managed humanitarian programs and led humanitarian convoys into conflict areas. Xavier is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, in Paris, France.

Quy-Toan (Toan) Do is the Co-Director for the World Development Report 2023 and a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group. His research focuses on Fragility, Conflict and Violence with an emphasis on conflict, crime, and forced displacement. He is the lead author of the recent Policy Research Report Violence without Borders: The Internationalization of Crime and Conflict. He holds a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and an MA from Ecole Polytechnique (France).

Çağlar Özden is a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank and co-director of the 2023 World Development Report on International Migration. A Turkish national and a professional migrant, Çağlar received his undergraduate degrees in economics and industrial engineering from Cornell University and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. He is a fellow of IZA, CreAM and ERF. His research explores the nexus of globalization of product and labor markets, government policies and economic development. He has edited three books and published numerous papers in leading academic journals such as the American Economic Review and the Economic Journal. He is the lead author of the recent flagship report Moving for Prosperity: Global Migration and Labor Markets. His current research projects explore the determinants and patterns of global labor mobility, impacts of migrants on the destination labor market outcomes, medical brain drain, linkages between migration, trade, and foreign direct investment flows.

Joyce Antone Ibrahim is the Task Team Leader of the World Development Report 2023. Prior to that, she spent nearly six years with the Subnational Doing Business Unit, where she led studies to assess the business environment in China, Malaysia, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. She also worked with the Doing Business project on various indicators, including leading the dealing with construction permits indicator for three years, as well as on financial inclusion and transparency issues within the World Bank. Joyce holds a Master’s of Arts in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelor’s of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Jessica Buchler serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. She also served as an NYU International Finance and Development Fellow when she first joined the World Bank, working with both the Legal Operations Policy Unit (LEGOP) and the WDR team. Prior to joining the World Bank, Jessica obtained a Master of Laws degree in International Legal Studies from the New York University School of Law. She is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and has previously worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and on migration issues at the Ecuadorian Red Cross in Quito.

Laura Caron serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. Laura is a PhD student in economics at Columbia University in New York City. Her research specializations are econometrics, development, and labor economics. Her publications cover migration, discrimination, and inequality and have appeared in Oxford Open Economics and the International Journal of Manpower, among others. Previously, she worked as a consultant and research assistant at the World Bank, Georgetown University, the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, and Precision Development (PxD). Laura holds a BSFS in International Political Economy from Georgetown University.

Paige Casaly is an extended-term consultant with the Operational Policy Practice Group of the World Bank’s Legal Vice Presidency. In this role, Paige has provided legal analysis and advice for Bank analytics and operations in settings of fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV), with a focus on refugees and forced displacement. She has also provided support to the Bank’s FCV Group to develop the Bank’s Refugee Policy Review Framework (RPRF). Prior to joining the World Bank in 2019, Paige worked as a Legal Fellow and Associate Policy Officer at the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Paige holds a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law.

Narcisse Cha’ngom serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. He is also a PhD candidate in Economics at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg. His research focuses on the nexus between the geography of selective emigration, economic development and development inequality at origin. Narcisse holds a Master of Science in Economics from University of Dschang (Cameroon), a Specialized Master’s in International and Development Economics from Catholic University of Louvain and University of Namur (Belgium) and a Master’s Degree in Public Finance from Clermont Auvergne University (France).

Viviane Clement is a Senior Climate Change Specialist with the Climate Change Group of the World Bank. She is an expert on climate change adaptation and resilience and works on climate policy, strategy, and analytics. She recently led the development of the report Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration. She has also led initiatives on climate risk management approaches and tools in a number of countries and worked on development operations covering integrated ecosystem and natural resource management in the Middle East and North Africa Region. She has a master’s degree from the University of Sydney and a PhD from the George Washington University School of Business. Her research has also been published in academic journals including Business Strategy and the Environment, and Organization & Environment.

Sameeksha serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. Previously, she has worked as a gender data consultant with the World Bank's Gender Group, where she contributed to providing technical assistance to partner countries on strengthening gender statistics in the economic domain. She has also been a part of the World Development Report 2021 team. As an international development professional, she has worked on projects focusing on public health, gender, conflict and refugee crisis issues. Sameeksha holds a graduate degree in Economic and Political Development (MPA) from Columbia University. Prior to that, she was an award-winning multimedia journalist in India, specializing in public health and data analysis. Additionally, she has an educational background in computer science engineering.

Matthew Martin serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. Prior to joining the team, he worked at the Inter-American Dialogue conducting research and analyzing data on trends in migration, remittances, and development. Matthew has previously worked with Precision Development on using evaluation to expand and improve agricultural extension programs and with the International Rescue Committee on economic empowerment programs for refugees and migrants in the United States. He holds a B.A. in International and Global Studies from Middlebury College and a Master's in Global Human Development from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Selome provides technical assistance in the planning and production stages of the World Development Report 2023. She is a bilingual transaction specialist for the unit managing stipends, as well as consultant and firm contracts. She has previously worked on World Development Report 2021 and World Development Report 2022. Selome was also Executive Assistant at the Global Partnership for Education. Having an excellent command in French, before joining the World Bank, she worked at the United Nations, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and African Union Commission.

Vikram Raghavan is Lead Counsel at the World Bank’s Legal Department in Washington, D.C. He is the Bank's legal advisor for FCV and macroeconomics. He works with operational teams on policy questions relating to the Bank’s development mandate; international law issues; loan conditionality; conflict, fragility and violence; refugees and forced displacement; humanitarian crises and disasters; the Bank’s response to military coups and political instability; UN sanctions; and graduation. He was closely involved in the recent update to the Bank’s policy on fragility, conflict, and violence. Over his twenty-one-year Bank career, Vikram has been involved in Bank operations in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, the West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen. Besides his legal work, Vikram frequently speaks about the Bank's evolution as development institution. He recently received the Bretton Woods@75 Award for contributions to the Bank Group’s institutional knowledge and memory. He was a member of the extended core team of the 2011 World Development Report: Conflict, Security, and Development.

Kanta Kumari Rigaud is a Lead Environmental Specialist and Regional Climate Change Coordinator in the Africa Region of the World Bank Group. She is a leading expert on climate adaptation and resilience and works on climate policy, strategy and knowledge management. She led the development of the World Bank’s Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan; and continued oversight in the roll-out. She is working on country programs in Kenya and Uganda and provides advice on key strategic priorities – in particular the Country Climate Development Reports across the region. Her passion and leadership on knowledge agenda is reflected in the pioneering flagship reports on Groundswell - Preparing for Internal Climate Migration; and the sequel Groundswell – Acting on Internal Climate Migration. Kanta led the Groundswell Africa focused on West Africa and the Lake Victoria Basin countries. She is currently leading the development of climate sector resilience guidance notes to ensure that climate risks are better assess and addressed in investments and policy dialogue. She is the co-chair of the Technical Working Group on Environmental Change and Migration in KNOMAD; on the Advisory Board to the EU-funded HABITABLE project; and a member of the IUCN Task Force and Working Group on Nature-Based Solutions at the Nexus of Environmental Change, Conflict, and Migration. She has a doctorate from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

Sandra V. Rozo works as a Research Economist at the Research Group at the World Bank (DECRG). Sandra’s main research focus explores the effects of forced migration within hosting economies and the role of public policies in supporting migrants and host communities; how firms' decisions change with economic and political shocks; and what are the consequences of violence and conflict. She holds a PhD and MA from UCLA, and a BA and MA from Universidad de los Andes. She is a IZA research fellow, a CEGA faculty affiliate, a faculty member of the Schaeffer Center for Health and Economics Policy, and a research fellow at the Center for Economic and Social Research at USC. Her research has been published at the Journal of Labor Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Development Economics among other leading development journals.

Zara Sarzin is a consultant in the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) Group, where she provides analysis and advice to inform country strategies and operations financed by the IDA Window for Host Communities and Refugees and the FCV Envelope. She also supports the knowledge sharing activities of the UNHCR-World Bank Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC), including its annual research conference, quarterly digest series, and monthly literature review on forced displacement. Previously, as a Senior Urban Specialist in the Africa region of the World Bank, Zara led the preparation and supervision of multi-stakeholder programs ranging from city development projects to national community-driven development and local government programs to strengthen governance, expand services, address local conflicts, and mitigate the impacts of forced displacement. Zara has contributed to numerous knowledge and analytical products focused on the development dimensions of forced displacement, including the Bank’s flagship report, Forcibly Displaced, and UNHCR’s recently published book, People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge. An actuary by training, Zara holds a MA with Honors from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Kirsten Schuettler is a Senior Consultant at the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice and Project Lead at the German Development Cooperation (GIZ). She has over 15 years of experience working in international development, in countries of different income levels across four continents. She led analytical work and prepared and supervised operations at the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice in Washington, DC. She also was a Senior Program Officer with the World Bank’s Migration & Remittances team and the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD). At the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), she led a global project on the platform economy, worked as a component manager in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Promotion Program in Tunisia and was an advisor on private sector development and migration at GIZ headquarters. She has published on migration, forced displacement, jobs interventions and economic development. Fluent in four languages, she holds master’s degrees in economics as well as in political science.  

Ganesh Seshan is a Senior Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice Group at the World Bank. His research interest on migration has focused on examining policies and social programs to enhance the developmental impact of migration and remittances. This includes the use of financial education, skills training and information campaigns.  A complementary work is to better understand forces that influence the decision to migrate overseas, its impact on household members in the origin country and financial decision-making in transnational households in the presence of information asymmetries. Seshan’s research has been published among others in the Journal of Development Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, World Bank Economic Review and Journal of Development Studies.  He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Elham Shabahat serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. Elham specializes in environmental policy, climate adaptation and resilience, and social dimensions of climate change. She is a coauthor of the report Groundswell II: Acting on Internal Climate Migration. She has worked as a program officer and researcher on community forestry in Southeast Asia, and landscape and wildlife conservation in Eastern Africa. She has a master’s degree in environmental science from Yale University, and a master’s degree in global affairs and human rights from New York University. Her previous research investigated refugee rights and immigration policy in South Africa, and corporate liability for economic, social, and cultural rights in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Elham’s writing has been published by CBC News, Hakai Magazine, Sapiens Magazine, and others.

Maheshwor Shrestha is a senior economist in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice of the World Bank for the West Africa region. He currently co-leads the analytical and operational engagements in Nigeria which focuses on providing large-scale safety net support and strengthening delivery systems to respond to ongoing shocks. He has worked on advancing engagements on migration, jobs, employment and entrepreneurship, and social protection in various countries in the South Asia and the East Asia and Pacific regions. His research work focuses on, among others, the migration of South Asian workers to the Gulf and other middle-income countries in Asia. Mahesh holds a PhD in Economics from MIT and a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.

Samikshya Siwakoti serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. She received her Masters's degree in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from Columbia University. Previously, she has worked as a Research Specialist at Princeton University and as a Field Research Associate for a migration-focused project with the Poverty Action Lab in Bangalore, India. 

Adesola Sunmoni serves as a research analyst for the World Development Report 2023. He is also a PhD Economics candidate at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. His research interest lies at the intersection of development, labour and migration economics, with emphasis on the economic impacts of international migration on origin households, communities and countries. Adesola has published in leading academic journals such as IZA Journal of Development and Migration. He has previously worked at the University College London, Queen Mary, University of London and University of Reading. Adesola holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Surrey, United Kingdom and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Mauro Testaverde is a senior economist in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice of the World Bank. Mauro’s work focuses on labor markets, human capital development, and migration policies. His research on these topics has been pub­lished in economic journals including the Scandinavian Journal of Economics and The World Bank Economic Review. Since 2012 Mauro has been part of World Bank teams providing technical and financial assistance in the areas of labor policy, migra­tion, and refugee integration. Before joining the World Bank, Mauro was part of the migration research team at the University of Southampton (UK), where he earned a doctorate in economics and master’s degree in econometrics.

Solomon Zena Walelign is a consultant in the Development Economics Vice Presidency Development Policy Group at the World Bank. Solomon’s main research interest includes livelihoods, poverty, natural resource management, migration, and forced displacement. His current research investigates the impacts of refugees on host communities, largescale agricultural land investment on local communities, and physical infrastructure on nutritious diet, gender empowerment, and equality. He is also a Director of Research at the International Centre for Evaluation and Development and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Gondar. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of California Berkeley and the University of South Carolina, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Copenhagen and Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He completed a double Ph.D. in Environmental and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen and in Forest Sciences at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. He conducted fieldwork in Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Christina Wieser is a Senior Economist in the East Africa Unit of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice where she co-leads the Ethiopia poverty program. Her research interests include economic mobility, the welfare of refugees, and the intersection of poverty and labor markets in developing countries. Moreover, she focuses on collecting high-quality data to enable evidence-based policymaking by linking economic shocks with their impact on the livelihoods of the poor. Since joining the World Bank in 2014, she has worked in South Asia as well as East and West Africa. She currently covers issues related to poverty, inequality, and displacement with a focus on Ethiopia. She previously worked in Afghanistan where her work focused on the impact of sluggish economic growth and the security transition on the Afghan labor market, social inclusion of youth and women, and reintegration challenges of displaced populations.

Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Christina worked as an Economist at the International Labour Organization, conducting research on labor market challenges in developing countries. Prior to that, she was Management Consultant in the private sector. Christina holds a Master of Science Degree in Economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business and a MBA from the University of Memphis.

Soonhwa Yi is a Senior Economist in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank Group for the East Asia and Pacific region. She has been working on identifying good practices to facilitate international labor mobility, especially for the low-skilled. Soonhwa also led a project to build a novel dataset on migration cost that low-skilled workers incurred during their temporary labor mobility, managing a team of researchers residing in various countries. She managed research programs of three thematic working groups, namely low-skilled labor migration, internal migration, and migration and security, part of the Bank’s Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD). Earlier, she worked on country macroeconomic monitoring as well as debt sustainability analysis and its operationalization for low-income countries. Prior to joining the Bank, she worked on identifying policies to promote trade in services for Latin American countries as well as Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation economies. Soonhwa completed her graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University. Her current research interest remains in the areas of international labor mobility and its economic and social implications for both countries of origin and destination.

Shane Romig is and External Affairs Officer at the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC) where he focuses on messaging and media relations. He previously worked in the Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean Region Vice Presidency and prior to that led communications for Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay from the World Bank’s Buenos Aires office. Before joining the Bank in 2015, Shane was a Foreign Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered economics, politics and general news in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay from his base in Buenos Aires. Shane is also a recovering attorney, with a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is licensed to practice law in Washington D.C.

Caroline Sergeant is a consultant with the Forced Displacement team within the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) Group of the World Bank. In this role she is working with the team on the eligibility processes for the IDA 19 Window for Host Communities and Refugees and preparations for IDA 20. She also supports the team on the Bank’s partnership with UNHCR and other bilateral and multilateral partners. Caroline has over 30 years of experience of development policy and delivering development outcomes in multilateral (World Bank Board, UNICEF), bilateral (UK Department for International Development) and civil society organizations internationally and in the field in Africa and Asia. She has an academic background in politics, sociology and public health.

Thamesha Tennakoon is a consultant with the Fragility, Conflict and Violence team at the World Bank. Previously, Thamesha worked with the United Nations Development Programme in Sri Lanka focusing on peacebuilding and strengthening democratic governance. Thamesha holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.