Gabriel Demombynes is the World Bank’s Practice Leader for Human Development for Colombia and Venezuela. Based in Bogota, he leads the Bank’s program in those countries in the areas of education, health, nutrition, population, social protection, and jobs.

Previously, Gabriel has held positions based in Manila, Hanoi, and Nairobi. He led preparation of the Philippines COVID-19 Emergency Response Project and Systematic Country Diagnostics for the Philippines and Vietnam. Other prominent examples of his varied work include critiques of the Millennium Villages Project evaluation, the development of innovative approaches to surveys in South Sudan, and studies of crime and violence in Central America and the Caribbean. 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 (SAIS) and was Economic Policy Advisor to Howard Dean during his 2003-04 U.S. presidential campaign. Gabriel 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.