Manila, Philippines
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 programs in education, health, nutrition, population, social protection, jobs and poverty reduction.
Previously, Demombynes was senior economist for poverty and equity issues in Vietnam. 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, development of innovative approaches to surveys in South Sudan, studies of crime and violence in Central America and the Caribbean, and portions of the World Bank’s “Vietnam 2035” report. His analysis of the costs of corruption in Kenya was cited by Barack Obama in a speech in Nairobi. His work has been published in academic journals and cited in the Economist, Washington Post and the Financial Times.
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 U.S. presidential campaign. Demombynes holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Berkeley and bachelor's degrees in civil engineering and humanities from the University of Texas at Austin.