Gabriel Demombynes is the World Bank’s Program Leader for Human Development for Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. Based in Manila, he leads the Bank’s program in those countries in the areas of education, health, nutrition, population, social protection, jobs, and poverty reduction.

Previously, Demombynes was Senior Economist for poverty and equity issues in Viet Nam. He has also held posts working on Latin America and the Caribbean while based in Washington, D.C., and on Kenya and South Sudan while based in Nairobi. Prominent examples of his work include critiques of the Millennium Villages Project evaluation, a study of infant mortality in Kenya, the development of innovative approaches to surveys in South Sudan, studies of crime and violence in Central America and the Caribbean, and elements of the Bank’s “Vietnam 2035” report. His work has been published in academic journals and cited in the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and Economist magazine.

He has taught economic development at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and was Economic Policy Advisor to Howard Dean during his 2003-04 US presidential campaign. Demombynes holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California-Berkeley and bachelor’s degrees in Civil Engineering and Humanities from the University of Texas at Austin.