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Mr. Kemal Dervis was born on 10 January 1949 in Istanbul and is a Turkish economist and politician. After working for the World Bank for 24 years, in 2001, he was appointed Turkish Minister of the Economy, where he implemented major economic reforms. From 2005 to 2009, he was Administrator for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nation’s global network for development. Mr. Dervis was also Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee made up of the heads of all United Nations funds, programs and departments working on development issues.
He is currently Vice-President and Director of the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution and, since March 2015, has also been Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the economy.
Kemal Dervis holds a Master’s Degree from the London School of Economics (1970) and a PhD from Princeton University (1973). He was a lecturer at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara from 1973 to 1976. From 1976 to 1978, he was also a lecturer at Princeton.