Reimagining public finance. Making public resources work for development outcomes

Arturo Herrera is the Global Director for Institutions in the Prosperity vertical, World Bank.

Arturo Herrera is the Global Director for Institutions in the Prosperity vertical of the World Bank. He joined the Bank in 2010 as a Senior Public Sector Management Specialist in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, holding various roles such as Sector Manager in LAC and Practice Manager in Governance Global Practice for LAC and East Asia and the Pacific. Leaving the Bank in 2018, until 2021 Arturo held leadership positions in the Government of Mexico as Co-Head of the Finance Team in Presidential Transition Team, Deputy Finance Minister, and, most recently, as Minister of Finance and Public Credit.

As the Bank's Global Director for Institutions, he leads country-level governance initiatives, especially in fragile and conflict-affected settings, maximizes operational support for public financial management and procurement, and advances the Bank’s Prosperity vertical in public sector administration and legal and judicial reforms.

Charlotte Kan is an international journalist, moderator, and Master of Ceremonies with over 20 years of experience. She began her career as a business journalist in London, reporting on finance, markets, and global affairs for various media outlets (Bloomberg TV, AFX News, Standard & Poor's, RTL-TVI, M6, etc.). Since then, she has moderated and hosted major international conferences for organisations including IMF, World Bank, ITU's AI for Good Global Summit, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, Astana International Forum, Amundi World Investment Forum, Women's Forum for the Economy & Society etc. 

Her work spans finance, sustainability, technology, and women empowerment.

Chigo Mtegha-Gelders is a Senior Governance Adviser and PFM Team Leader at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).  She leads FCDO’s policy and strategy on public financial management supporting country-owned and politically led PFM reforms that ensure effective management of public resources.

Chigo brings over two decades of leadership in governance, fiscal policy, and institutional reform, including as a frontline governance adviser in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, leading complex reform portfolios in Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Malawi. As FCDO’s Head of Profession for Governance, she led a cadre of governance advisers across FCDO’s global network, championing technical excellence, thought leadership and professional development.

She served as Chief of Staff to FCDO’s Chief Scientific Adviser & Director of Research, Head of Strategic Capability and Challenge, and Head of Policy at Wilton Park. She holds a master’s in Public Policy from the University of Cape Town.

Philippe Brügger works as a program manager in the Macroeconomic Support Section within the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. He leads the sections global work on public financial management and oversees its country portfolios in Ukraine and Indonesia. He holds a Masters in Economics and Behavioral Economics from the University of Zurich.

Heewoo Kang is the Director of the Center for Performance Evaluation & Management at the Korea Institute of Public Finance (KIPF), where he is responsible for supporting the overall operation of Korea’s fiscal performance evaluation system managed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. His research interests focus on generating, managing, and utilizing information to enhance the efficiency of fiscal programs. In recent years, his work has centered on strengthening the feedback of fiscal performance evaluation results, introducing spending review mechanisms to support sustainable fiscal consolidation, and developing performance management frameworks for cross-cutting programs. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2014 and has since been serving at KIPF.

Margaux is a Governance Specialist at the World Bank and a French Senior Civil Servant with expertise in economic policy, green strategies, and public financial management (PFM). She coordinated the Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting at OECD, leading efforts to integrate climate considerations into PFM. Previously, Margaux served as Deputy Head and Head of Office at the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, shaping budgetary policies, recovery plans, fiscal strategies, and green budgeting. She was also a PFM expert for the IMF, supporting reforms in countries including Cameroon, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Gabon, Ireland, Italy, Mozambique, Türkiye, and Moldova.

Margaux began her career as a Financial Magistrate at the French Supreme Audit Institution, demonstrating her commitment to governance and fiscal accountability. She teaches Public Finance and Budgeting at Sorbonne University and the French National School of Administration. She holds two Master's degrees from Sciences Po and Université Panthéon-Sorbonne-École Normale Supérieure.

Emana Shunnom is a Program Officer with the World Bank’s Financial Management Umbrella Program (FMUP), where she oversees the program’s coordination, grant monitoring, and communications to strengthen transparent and accountable public financial management in World Bank client countries. She facilitates high-level dialogue, moderates panels, and drives strategic engagement with donors and partners. Her 15-year career spans government, policy, and technology. At Cybastion, she managed policy and strategic communications across African markets as the Senior Po; at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, she advanced U.S.–Africa business and trade relations as an Africa Fellow; and at NNPC Retail Ltd., she managed a multi-billion-naira fuel station portfolio. A 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow under the United States Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), Emana holds dual masters, an M.A. in International Policy & Practice from George Washington University, and a Master’s in International Affairs & Strategic Studies from the Nigerian Defence Academy.

Florence Kuteesa is an economist with four decades of experience in public financial management (PFM). She is an independent consultant in PFM and member of ODI Global - PFM Advisory Group. She has worked with governments, private consultancy firms, policy advocacy NGOs and development partners to improve practices in national and sectoral planning, annual and multi-year budgeting, program-based budgeting, public investment management, fiscal decentralization, and gender and equity-based budgeting. She served in Fiscal Affairs Department in the International Monetary Fund providing technical assistance to ministries of finance in anglophone countries in Africa (2007-2016). Prior, she served as a Director Budget in Ugandan Ministry of Finance and was instrumental in enhancing credibility in public sector budgeting (1998- 2004). She is a founder member of Collaborative African Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) – a network of budget officials in Africa started in 2003. She, together with Tim Williamson and others, authored a publication: “Uganda Economic Reforms: Insiders Account”. She holds a master’s degree in human resource development from University of Manchester in UK, and a Hubert Humphrey Fellowship in strategic planning, public finance and policy from University of Texas at Austin in USA.

Philipp Krause specializes in public finance and public administration. He is a visiting fellow in German politics and government at the University of Potsdam and serves on the board of the African Economic Research Consortium. In the past, he held leadership positions at CABRI (Africa’s network of senior budget officials), the Gates Foundation, and the Overseas Development Institute. He also worked for the governments of Germany and Mexico, the World Bank, as well as the University of the Witwatersrand. In those different roles, Philipp had a chance to cover everything from macro-fiscal policy to procurement and performance budgeting but remains most interested in the role and structure of ministries of finance. He recently published (together with Richard Allen) a survey of contemporary issues in PFM. Philipp holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Nicola Smithers worked as a World Bank staff for over 20 years, with roles including Governance Practice Manager, Global Lead on Public Financial Management and Lead Public Sector Specialist, and a focus on Africa, East Asia and South Asia.  In addition, she headed the multi-partner Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) program, leading the development of the PEFA tool launched in 2005, and was also a steering committee member for its 2016 revision.  Prior to the World Bank, she was a PFM consultant, UK Department for International Development resident adviser in East Africa and Overseas Development Institute fellow in the Fiji Ministry of Finance

Paolo de Renzio is a public finance practitioner and scholar, and Senior Adjunct Professor at the Escola Brasileira de Administração Pública e de Empresas of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV EBAPE). Paolo also holds a regular visiting faculty position at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a consultant with the World Bank on public finance matters. Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the International Budget Partnership (IBP) in Washington, DC, where he coordinated research on fiscal policy, governance, and development, and visiting faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School. He also worked in the Ministry of Finance of Papua New Guinea, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Mozambique and as a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute in London, and has extensive consulting experience with international institutions, governments, and non-governmental organizations. He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford, and has spent the 2021/22 academic year as a Policy Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University.

Shantayanan Devarajan is Professor of the Practice of International Development at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.  Prior to Georgetown, he spent 28 years at the World Bank, where he was the Senior Director for Development Economics, the Chief Economist of the South Asia, Africa, and Middle East and North Africa regions and of the Human Development Network, and Research Manager for Public Economics.  Before joining the World Bank, he was on the faculty of Harvard Kennedy School.  Born in Sri Lanka, Shanta received his A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Gabriel Yorio González is Vice President for Finance and Administration at the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB). He advances financial management and sustainable finance strategies to support the IDB’s mission of fostering inclusive growth and resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean. He oversees initiatives that optimize balance sheet capacity, strengthen treasury operations, and expand innovative financing mechanisms—positioning IDB as the region’s principal development partner. With total assets of about USD 160 billion, including approximately USD 120 billion in outstanding loans, the IDB is a cornerstone of sustainable development financing.

Previously, Yorio González served as Vice Minister of Finance at Mexico’s Ministry of Finance, where he led the country’s fiscal and debt-management strategies, spearheaded financial-sector reforms, and promoted sustainable finance—including the development of Mexico’s sustainable taxonomy and the expansion of green financial instruments. His led the modernization of securities market regulation, advancing pension reform, and strengthening gender-focused financial inclusion policies.

He has held positions at the World Bank, Mexico’s National Bank for Infrastructure and Public Services, and the Government of Mexico City. He holds a Master’s degree in Policy Management from Georgetown University and a Master’s degree in Economics from El Colegio de México.

Dr. Marc Robinson is a public financial management consultant who has advised over thirty countries, on all continents and at all stages of development, on budgeting reforms. He has written extensively on budgeting issues, including influential publications on performance budgeting, fiscal policy, medium-term budgeting and spending review. Marc was the principle author of the 2007 IMF book Performance Budgeting: Linking Funding and Results. His most recent book, Bigger Government: The Future of Government Expenditure in Advanced Countries, was ranked as one of the best economics books of 2020 by the Financial Times. He blogs regularly on PFM and broader fiscal matters.

Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Marc was a senior Australian civil servant, a professor of economics, and a staff economist at the International Monetary Fund. He holds a PhD from the Australian National University and a masters in economics from the University of Melbourne. His website and blog are at www.pfmresults.com.

Tim Williamson is the World Bank’s Global Lead for Public Financial Management, based in Washington, DC. He leads the Reimagining Public Finance initiative and co-led the Future of Government initiative, focusing on strengthening financing and institutional reforms to achieve development results.

Tim joined the World Bank in 2016 and was initially based in Nairobi, where he led governance engagements in Kenya and Uganda. In Kenya, he developed a results-based approach to public financial management reform. In Uganda, he led a multi-disciplinary team supporting reforms in financing and managing local government service delivery in health, education, water, and irrigation. In both countries, Tim applied problem-based approaches, building teams and coalitions to drive reform and achieve results.

Before joining the Bank, Tim worked in advisory and applied research roles, mainly in East Africa and South Asia, and had a long association with ODI. He began his career in 1998 at Uganda’s Ministry of Finance.

Orria Goñi Delzangles is the Lead Advisor on Public Finance for SDGs at UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub, where she leads global work to align fiscal systems with the commitments of the Compromiso de Sevilla and the Financing for Development agenda. With over 25 years of experience in international development and public finance, she supports governments in enhancing domestic resource mobilization, advancing fiscal policy coherence, and strengthening public financial management and governance to accelerate SDG achievements.

A thought leader in operationalizing Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs), Orria has helped shape the SDG Financing Strategies through its country platforms across Sub-Saharan Africa, forging partnerships between Ministries of Finance and Planning, tax administrations, and international partners to embed sustainability, equity, and resilience in public finance.

Previously, she served as Chief of Public Finance and Local Governance at UNICEF, where she redefined the Public Finance for Children agenda and led policy dialogue to safeguard social sector investments amid tightening fiscal space. Her career spans Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including two decades with the UN (UNDP and UNICEF) and earlier roles with the International Red Cross, Lawyers Without Borders, and AECID.

A lawyer by training with advanced studies in International Development Cooperation, Orria brings expertise in strategic planning, financing for development, economic governance and South–South cooperation. She is fluent in English, French, and Spanish.

Carolina Rentería is Chief of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department’s (FAD) Public Financial Management (PFM) I Division. She is responsible for delivering PFM capacity development in Anglophone Africa, Europe, Middle East and Central Asia regions and developing a comprehensive PFM Capacity Development and analytical agenda in areas such as Budget and Treasury processes, Infrastructure Governance, Fiscal Risks Management, Fiscal Transparency and Govtech. She is leading FAD’s efforts and innovations to mainstream gender and climate in PFM practices and to increase efficiency and effectiveness of public investment management. Prior to joining the IMF in 2016, she served as Minister of Planning and National Budget Director in Colombia and worked at the World Bank as Executive Director of the Board and Lead Economist for Africa. She holds a master’s degree from New York University on Public Administration and from Universidad de Los Andes in Economic Development.

Richard Sutherland is a Senior Governance Specialist within the Public Finance & Procurement Global Unit at the World Bank, based in Washington, DC. As Global Lead for Climate Change Governance and Finance, he spearheads efforts to integrate climate and disaster risk considerations into public financial management (PFM) and governance systems worldwide. He also contributes to the Reimagining Public Finance initiative and is currently involved in various aspects of PFM, including gender budgeting, health financing, results-based budgeting, and PFM analytics. 

Richard also managed the Bank’s Financial Management Umbrella Program, overseeing nearly 100 projects that span the full spectrum of PFM reforms. Prior to joining the global unit, he worked extensively on tax and customs administration, public finance, disaster risk financing, and institutional reform across Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and East Asia. A former Assistant Professor of Economics, he holds a master’s degree in economics and is completing a Ph.D. in Public Administration.

Tom Hart is a Senior Research Fellow in ODI Global’s Development and Public Finance team. His research seeks to understand how improved fiscal policies and public financial management can support more effective delivery of public services.  His work has covered budget reform, fiscal decentralization, health financing, public investment management, and debt. Before joining ODI in 2014, Tom worked for seven years in South Sudan, Kenya and Uganda, initially as an ODI Fellow in the Ministry of Finance in South Sudan. He started his career in HM Treasury, the UK’s finance ministry. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics.

A health system and health financing expert with more than 20 years of experience in low-, middle-income as well as OECD countries, Agnès Couffinhal is the Global Program Lead for health financing at the World Bank. At the World Bank, she has extensive policy dialogue and operational experience in South Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia as well as Africa. She has also worked at the OECD and for the World Health Organization in Copenhagen. She has a track record of impactful publications on efficiency (wasteful spending in health systems), equity (comparative assessments across countries) and governance. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Paris IX-Dauphine.

Laura Rawlings is an internationally recognized expert on international human development with over 30 years of experience leading projects and research on social protection, gender, early childhood development and behavioral incentives. As Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Gender Group, Laura B. Rawlings spearheads analytical work and partnerships as part of the global effort to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

Laura has published numerous books and articles in the fields of evaluation and human development. She is a member of the Global Reference Group for Children Affected by Crisis and a professor in Georgetown University’s Global Human Development program.

Tuan Minh Le is Senior Economist with Fiscal Policy and Sustainable Growth unit, Economic Policy at the World Bank. He has been working globally on tax and fiscal policies. His publication focuses on tax policy design, revenue administration, public investment management, and the interface between fiscal policy and climate change. Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Le was the advisor at the Public Finance Group, former Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard University.  He was Assistant Professor of Economics at Suffolk University.  Dr. Le has engaged in a broad range of teaching, research, policy advisory, and operations on taxation and fiscal policy in countries across regions.  He was the author of numerous published papers and was the co-author of the books ‘The Power Public Investment Management:  Transforming Resources into Assets for Growth;’ ‘Rents to Riches? The Political Economy of Natural Resource-Led Development;’ and ‘Tax Reform in Vietnam: Toward a More Efficient and Equitable System.’  He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Andrea Sissa is a Research Officer in the Development and Public Finance programme at ODI. Her research and advisory work focus on public financial management, access to climate finance, and shock-responsive social protection in low- and middle-income countries. Her main interests include the resilience and efficiency of public finances, and disaster risk finance in a context of just transition.

Before joining ODI, Andrea worked as a consultant for the World Bank in Latin America,  South Sudan, and Washington, DC, contributing to public financial management reforms, public spending reviews, and climate budget research. She was also a Policy and Research Officer for the International Growth Centre. 

Andrea holds an MSc in International Social and Public Policy from LSE and BSc degrees in Economics and Industrial Engineering from Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá.

Dr. Kyle McNabb is an Economist in the Fiscal Policy and Sustainable Growth Unit, Economic Policy at the World Bank where he specializes on issues related to tax policy reform. Prior to joining the World Bank, he was based in Kampala, Uganda, where he worked on the FCDO-funded TaxDev program as Uganda Country Lead. He has also served as a research fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and has consulted for UNDP. He holds a PhD in Economics from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

Débora is the Vice Minister of Internal Management and System Development in the Ministry of Finance of Guatemala ; she is in charge of coordinating the budget and annual operative plan , elaborating projects and programs for the effective functioning of the Ministry of Finance. With IT, she coordinates actions for the development , programming, and maintenance of the Integrated Financial Management System , and also coordinates the incorporation of the Integrated Financial Management System into the country's municipalities.  
She is a professional with over 17 years of experience in administration and institutional strengthening, accountability mechanisms, human rights, national and international policy , social auditing, and management of social and environmental projects.  
She holds a bachelor's degree in International Relations and a master' s degree in formulation and evaluation of projects, both from Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.

Diego F. Angel-Urdinola is a Senior Economist and Thematic Lead for Education Finance at the Education Global Engagement Unit of the World Bank. He oversees analytical work, operations, technical assistance, and applied research focused on education finance and skills development. Diego’s professional experience spans numerous developing countries and regions, with particular emphasis on Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa. He has published extensively in both academic and non-academic outlets, including the Journal of Economic Inequality, Journal of International Development, IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Labour Economics, Development Policy Review, as well as several working paper series and books. Diego holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Georgetown University.

Noureddine Ghammam is the current Director of Budget, heading the General Directorate of Financial Affairs at the Ministry of Education.

He graduated from the Higher Institute of Management of Tunis and the National School of Administration – Middle Cycle. He began his career at the Ministry of Interior, in the Governorate of Kairouan, as Investment Officer for municipalities.

In February 2008, he joined the Ministry of Education, within the General Directorate of Financial Affairs, where he steadily advanced through the ranks to his current position. Throughout his career, he has also contributed to the training of regional education commissioner staff in public financial management, thereby strengthening financial governance capacities at the regional level.

Alongside his responsibilities, Mr. Ghammam serves as a member of several bodies, including the Ministerial Procurement Committee, the School Year Monitoring Committee, the Board of Directors of the National Pedagogical Center, as well as the Ministry’s Joint Promotion Committee.

Yogita Upadya Mumssen is the Water Global Solutions Manager for the World Bank where she manages and leads the Global Solutions Unit comprising 40 staff and long-term consultants and provides strategic direction in delivering cutting edge technical solutions, advice and global knowledge into implementation, with the aim of supporting operational teams based in the regional units that deliver programs to Bank clients. Prior to this she was Practice Manager for Western and Central Africa, where she managed a team and portfolio that focuses on sustaining water resources, delivering water, sanitation and irrigation services, and building resilience in 22 countries of West and Central Africa, and led the development of a strategy for enhanced water security for the region. Yogita previously managed water, sanitation, and electricity projects in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has also created and managed regional and global multi-donor trust funds that cover an array of sectors and development approaches. Yogita was a Presidential Exchange Fellow at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) where she worked in IFC’s Global Infrastructure Investment unit. She has worked extensively on regulation, institutional reform, sector restructuring, private sector participation, results-based financing and pro-poor service delivery across the infrastructure sectors. She has degrees from Brown University and the London School of Economics.

Jacques Sosthène DINGARA is the current Minister of Primary Education, Literacy, and the Promotion of National Languages of Burkina Faso. Previously, he was a senior civil servant and financial services expert with extensive experience in governance, planning, and public sector reform. He played a major role in modernizing Burkina Faso’s public administration, notably through the biometric identification of public servants, the digitalization of government platforms, and the strengthening of transparency. He coordinated the development of the first Ten-Year Strategic Plan for Public Administration Modernization (2010–2020), the National Good Governance Strategy, the Strategic Plan for Administrative Decentralization, and the White Paper on the Civil Service. He also served as coordinator of the World Bank’s first P4R Program in Burkina Faso through the Public Administration Modernization Program. As a former technical adviser within the Directorate General of Economy and Planning at the Ministry of Economy and Development, he contributed to the design of other key strategic frameworks and chaired the technical team that carried out the national survey on the implementation of the Burkina 2025 National Prospective Study. As Minister of Education, he is now focused on improving education governance, driving curriculum reform, digitalizing the education system, promoting national languages, and ensuring inclusive access to preschool and primary education.

Caren Grown is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, and an internationally recognized expert on gender issues in development. From 2014-2021, served as the Global Director for Gender at the World Bank Group and as senior technical advisor in the Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice until 2022.

Prior, she was Economist-In-Residence and co-director of the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics at American University in Washington, DC. She led the UNU-WIDER program on aid effectiveness and gender equality, producing 22 commissioned papers and a global synthesis. From 2011 to 2013, she served as Senior Gender Advisor and Acting Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at USAID, where she developed and implemented the Agency’s Gender Equality and Female Empowerment policy. Dr. Grown has held senior positions at The Levy Economics Institute, the International Center for Research on Women, and the MacArthur Foundation. She contributed to the UN Millennium Project and advised the Asian Development Bank on gender mainstreaming and results measurement. Her recent books include Taxation and Gender Equity, The Feminist Economics of Trade, and Trading Women's Health and Rights, among others. Dr. Grown’s articles have appeared in leading journals such as World Development and The Lancet.

She was Associate Editor of Feminist Economics, a founding member of GEM-IWG, and holds a PhD and MA in Economics from the New School for Social Research and a BA in Political Science from UCLA.

Dr Helene Barroy is a Senior Public Finance Expert with the World Health Organization. She is a globally recognized expert on public financing for health, with 25 years of professional experience, including roles at the WHO, World Bank, and various governments. She leads the Montreux Collaborative on fiscal space, public financial management, and health financing. Helene is widely published on topics such as public financial management, budgeting, and fiscal space for health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public finance and administration from Sciences Po, a master’s degree in health policy from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in economics from CERDI, France.

Kalpana Kochhar is Director, Development Policy and Finance at the Gates Foundation. Kalpana ensures that the foundation’s work in global policy and advocacy is informed by strong economic and financial insights and connected to key policymakers and emerging trends.

Before this role, she spent 33 years at the IMF, concluding her tenure as Director of the Human Resources Department from 2016 to 2021. She also held positions as Deputy Director in the Asia and Pacific Department of the IMF, and in the Strategy, Policy and Review Department where she launched the IMF’s work on the macroeconomic implications of gender inequality and women’s economic empowerment.

Between 2010 and 2012, she was seconded as the Chief Economist for the South Asia Region of the World Bank.

Kalpana's research interests and publications focus on emerging markets, jobs and inclusive growth, gender and inequality issues, structural reforms, and regional integration in South Asia. 

She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Economics from Brown University and an M.A. in Economics from Delhi School of Economics in India. She has a B.A in Economics from Madras University in India.

Natia Gulua currently serves as the Head of the Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, where she leads the preparation of the National Budget and the development of the Medium-Term Fiscal Framework. In this role, she oversees fiscal policy design, expenditure prioritization, and the implementation of budgetary reforms aimed at enhancing transparency, accountability, and the efficiency of public resource allocation. With nearly twenty years of progressive experience across key public institutions in Georgia, Ms. Gulua has been at the forefront of major PFM reforms, including Results-Based Budgeting, Public Investment Management Reform, Medium-Term Planning, and Budget Transparency. Her earlier leadership roles at the Ministries of Internally Displaced Persons, Health, Social Security and Internal Affairs have equipped her with extensive expertise in sectoral budgeting and financial governance. Notably, Ms. Gulua leads the preparation of PEFA self-assessments, revisions to the Open Budget Survey, and the development of other key reports in cooperation with international partner organizations. 

She holds a Master's degree Economics and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Economics and Management, complemented by international training in fiscal policy management. Recognized for her expertise in public finance, Ms. Gulua actively contributes to international policy dialogue.

Khuram Farooq is a Senior Governance Specialist of the World Bank. Khuram has over 25 years of global experience in digital transformation and PFM, spanning more than 100 World Bank operations across 50 countries. 

As a well-recognized global leader of the World Bank on PFM and GovTech, he has led six global publications on topics including Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS), Agile Treasuries, AI in the Public Sector, Cloud Computing, Mobile Government, and Human Resource Management Systems (HRMIS).  Currently, with IMF, he is co-authoring a book on ‘Digital Money’. 

Prior to joining the World Bank, he was a senior civil servant in the Government of Pakistan, where he led a very large-scale, whole-of-government SAP deployment for budget management and payroll across every tier of the government.

Cathal co-leads the Digital Public Finance Hub at ODI. His other main area of interest is local government financing for service delivery. He also provides advice and technical assistance on public financial management reforms to governments and their development partners through ODI’s advisory services. Prior to joining ODI, he was an ODI Fellow in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development in Swaziland, and previously worked in public sector consultancy.

He holds a Master’s in Economics from University College Dublin and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

Matt Andrews is the Edward S. Mason Senior Lecturer in International Development at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has worked in over 50 countries across the globe as a civil servant, international development expert, researcher, teacher, advisor and coach. He has written three books and over 60 other publications on the topics of development and management. He is also the faculty director of the Building State Capability program at Harvard, which is where he has developed – with a team – a policy and management method to address complex challenges. This method is called problem driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) and was developed through over a decade of applied action research work by Matt and his team  

Jordi Baños-Rovira is an economist specialized in public financial management. He is currently a Public Financial Management Specialist at the World Bank's Institutions Global Practice, based in DC. Previously, he was a public financial management consultant with the IMF and the World Bank and occupied different managerial positions in Spanish governments, such as being the Head of Budget Policy at the Catalan Government, Budget co-director at the Barcelona City Government or CFO at the L'Hospitalet de Llobregat City Government. He has been also an associate lecturer and researcher at the University of Barcelona (UB)/Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB), and a lecturer of public finance courses/sessions at both the Spanish (INAP), Catalan (EAPC), and Basque (IVAP) Institutes/Schools of Public Administration, and the Center of Excellence in Finance (CEF) in Slovenia.   

Dr Kay Brown, Executive Secretary, Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) Dr Kay Brown is an economist, who holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town. Her research interests have always been focused on social policy making and implementation, and its impact. After lecturing at Nelson Mandela University, Dr Brown joined the South African National Treasury (Treasury) in 2002, working on sector policy development in the new Democracy. In 2007, she headed up the Budget planning unit at the Treasury. She managed the national budget allocation process, made recommendations, and ensured that these were communicated to the Executive, Parliament, and government institutions. She was also responsible for the Treasury’s budget reform agenda and served as country representative in international budget reform forums. Her responsibilities included South Africa’s participation in and responses to international country assessments and studies. She has been Chief Executive Officer of a Constitutional institution overseeing equity in government budgets. Dr Brown served as a country member of CABRI for a decade and has previously served as a member and Chairperson of the CABRI Management Committee. Dr Brown is a proud staff member and leader of the CABRI Secretariat, whose staff contribute to improvements in Public Finance Management praxis across the African continent.

Richard Allen is a former staff member and Deputy Division Chief of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF. Since April 2021 he has been a consultant on public finance issues. He has contributed to the IMF’s PFM Blog since its launch in 2008 and been a Co-Editor for more than ten years. He is also a Senior Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute in London. Before joining the IMF Richard was a senior official at the UK Treasury, the OECD, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, and a board member of the European Investment Bank. He has advised the governments of over 80 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia on public finance topics. He is the co-editor of The International Handbook of Public Financial Management, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015, and with Philipp Krause, Contemporary Issues and Challenges in PFM, Palgrave Macmillan, April 2025, as well as the author of many other books and articles on PFM and fiscal issues.

Currently,  Jonah Wala is leading teams in transitioning Kenya from cash to accrual accounting using as part of his responsibilities as Director of Accounting Services/ Accountant General at the National Treasury. He sits on various public boards and councils in Kenya including the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya, Kenya Institute of Certified Financial Analysts of Kenya, Chuka University, and Kenya Law. He is the Registrar of the Certified Public Secretaries Board.  

Wala has led teams in reviewing and developing laws, subsidiary regulations, and policies in the public sector fiscal management space, as well as the Public Finance Management Act, Public Audit Act, Accountants Act, and the Certified Public Secretaries Act.  

He convenes the Technical Committee of the Africa Association of Accountant Generals, an association with a support mandate of public sector reforms in all 54 countries in Africa. He serves on the academic board of the Africa Professionalization Initiative developing competency content. He chaired the IFRS S2 Climate-related disclosures transition roadmap committee for Kenya.  

Jonah Wala joined the IPSASB as a member in January 2023. He was nominated by Public Sector Accounting Standards Board in Kenya.    

Wala holds a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance and is pursuing a PhD in Management from the Case Western Reserve University, US.

Manuela Francisco is the Global Director for the Economic Policy in the Prosperity Vertical, a position she started on 1 January 2023.

Manuela, a Portuguese national, joined the World Bank in 2005 as Country Economist in the Africa Department. She has since held various positions of responsibility in the Bank. Prior to her current position, she was the Director of Credit Risk, in the Chief Risk Offizcer Vice Presidency, and before that, she was the Practice Manager for MTI in the South Asia Region.

Before joining the Bank, Manuela was an Assistant Professor at Universidade do Minho, Portugal.

Manuela has a PhD in Economics, International Macroeconomics from the University of Nottingham.

Flemings Flex Nyirenda, a Malawian national serves dual roles as the Deputy Director of Planning and Policy in the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture and Deputy Project Coordinator (DPC) for a World Bank Funded project, Regional Climate Resilience Programme for Eastern and South Africa 2 (RCRP-2). The project employs Performance-Based funding mechanism that incentivises local authorities.

With over 19 years of experience in development planning and policy, Mr. Nyirenda has worked with the Malawi Government, local governments and state-owned enterprises. Currently, he coordinates key components, of RCRP-2 project that relates to District-Led Resilience Building, in fostering cross-team collaboration and ensuring timely project delivery. He oversees implementation of resilience infrastructure in 28 local authorities in Malawi.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Nyirenda served as Deputy Coordinator for the Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) Project. The GESD project strengthen local authorities’ performance through disbursement of performance-based grants. Mr. Nyirenda draws on his academic background, holding an MSc in Agriculture and Applied Economics.

Derrick Namisi is Principal Economist at the Ministry of Education and Sports, serving in the Education Planning Department where he oversees the activities of the Budget Section. He previously served as a Senior Economist within the Ministry, contributing to key policy and planning frameworks in the education sector. In addition to his public service, Derrick Namisi served as a Council Member of the National Council of Sports from 2022-2024, providing oversight on sports policy and governance.

Derrick Namisi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Development Economics and a Master’s degree in Economic Policy and Planning from Makerere University. He is deeply passionate about the role of fiscal decentralisation in driving development. He is the focal person for the Education component under the Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (UGIFT) Programme.

This flagship initiative has achieved significant milestones under his stewardship, including securing improved funding allocations to Local Governments for education, facilitating the establishment of 259 seed schools to expand access, and enhancing the effectiveness and discretion of expenditure at the Local Government level.

Samuel Opio is an Economist with over 15 years of experience in Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms in Uganda. He began his career in 2010 as a Budget Analyst in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, where he was part of the core technical team leading Uganda’s budgeting reforms and supporting the country’s transition from input-based budgeting to output oriented and programme-based approaches. 

In 2017, Samuel took the role of Fiscal Decentralization Officer in the Ministry of Finance, working with sector ministries on the Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (IGFT) system. He was part of the multisectoral team that conceptualized, designed, and began implementing IGFT reforms in collaboration with World Bank staff in Uganda. 

Since 2018, Samuel has been part of the technical level government team spearheading the actualization of these reforms through the Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers (UGIFT) Programme, the country’s first multisectoral Program for Results (PforR) supported by the World Bank. Covering education, health, water, agriculture (micro scale irrigation), and refugee support, UGIFT has achieved over 94 percent of its targets, making it one of Uganda’s most successful and impactful PFM reform initiatives for strengthening social service delivery.

Ross leads the IPSASB staff team in its standard-setting and outreach activities. Recently, Ross' focus has been on strategic initiatives to broaden the IPSASB’s funding, strengthen the institutional support needed for public sector sustainability reporting, and determine the work plan priorities to account for the increasing use of IPSAS globally.

Ross joined IPSASB in 2013, and led the implementation of the Board’s governance activities, including the establishment of the Consultative Advisory Group. Ross also led the development of the IPSASB’s financial instruments projects, IFRS alignment activities, and the strategy and work program.

Before joining the IPSASB, Ross worked for several years for a big-4 accounting firm in Canada and Japan. Ross focused on complex accounting and audit assignments related to public utilities, industrial companies, and financial institutions. Ross is a Canadian Chartered Professional Accountant.

Tracey Lane is Practice Manager, Institutions, at the World Bank. Since joining the World Bank as a Young Professional in 2001, she has held leadership roles across multiple regions, including Senior Economist in Eastern Europe, East Africa, and South Asia; Program Leader in the Middle East and North Africa; and Lead Economist in Latin America. Most recently, she managed the Governance Global unit and oversaw the launch of the GovTech initiative of the EFI Vice Presidency before moving to the Africa West region and managing a $1.5 billion portfolio of projects to support clients to strengthen their fiscal management and systems to deliver better public services. With a background in the U.K. government economic service, Tracey specializes in fiscal policy, public financial management, tax administration and government expenditure. She holds BA and MA degrees in Economics from the University of Essex, U.K.

Andreas Bergmann is Full Professor of Public Finance and Director of the Public Sector at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, as well as Editor-in-Chief of Public Money & Management, a leading journal for both scholars and practitioners.

He chaired the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) from 2010 to 2015, following his service as a public member since 2006. Since 2019, he has chaired the IPSASB’s Academic Advisory Group, and in January 2025 he became part-time Chair of the Swiss Public Sector Financial Reporting Advisory Committee (SRS-CSPCP). From 2011 to 2013, he was also a member of the IMF’s GFS Advisory Committee.

With more than 25 years of experience in public financial management reforms across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, he advises at both national and subnational levels.

He holds a diploma from Lancaster University (UK) and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). 

Ana Patricia Muñoz is the International Budget Partnership (IBP)´s Executive Director. IBP´s goal is to make sure governments raise and spend public money more fairly, so that everyone has the resources and opportunities they need to thrive and get ahead. To achieve this, IBP works with budget analysts, civil society organizations, social movements, multilateral and international institutions, and partners in 120 countries.Previously, Ana Patricia was the Executive Director of FARO, an Ecuadorian think tank that generates research and implements initiatives to influence public policy and build a more equitable and sustainable society.  She spent a decade at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she rose through the ranks to become Assistant Vice President. She spearheaded ground-breaking research and produced a seminal report on the racial wealth gap.

Vitor Gaspar is Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department at the IMF. He joined in 2014. Before that, he was Portuguese Minister of State and Finance from 2011–13, and has held various positions in European and Portuguese institutions, including head of BEPA at the European Commission, director-general of research at the European Central Bank, director of Economic Studies and Statistics at the Central Bank of Portugal, and Director of Economic Studies at the Portuguese Ministry of Finance. 

Gaspar holds a Ph.D. and a post-doctoral agregado in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa; he graduated from Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

Hassan Zaman is the Regional Practice Director of Prosperity overseeing the World Bank’s economic policy, financial sector, private sector development, institutions and poverty work in East Africa and before that he played the same similar role for the East Asia and Pacific Region.  Prior to this, Hassan was Director of the World Bank’s central Operations Policy and Quality department for four years. He joined the World Bank as a Young Professional in 1998 followed by country economist positions in Africa and South Asia and Lead Economist in the central Poverty Reduction group. Between 2011 and 2014 he took leave from the World Bank to work as the Chief Economist and Senior Adviser to the Governor at the Central Bank in Bangladesh. Hassan has a doctorate in Economics from the University of Sussex and a Masters and Bachelors in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Oscar Calvo-Gonzalez is the Regional Practice Director of Prosperity for the Latin America and the Caribbean region at the World Bank. Since joining the Bank in 2006, he has held multiple leadership roles, including Director in the Independent Evaluation Group. Prior to the World Bank, he was a Principal Economist at the European Central Bank. He has taught at the London School of Economics and Georgetown University and has published on a wide range of economic policy issues, as well as on the economic development of Spain and the application of behavioral insights to public policy. A national of Spain, Oscar holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. 

Doerte Doemeland is the Director for Strategy and Operations in the Prosperity Vice Presidency, a role she took on in July 2024. Before this assignment, she was the Practice Manager for Economic Policy for Latin America and the Caribbean and for the Global Macro and Debt Unit. Doerte has extensive management and operational experience, engaging with senior government officials on a wide range of policy reforms in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean through advisory services and lending operations. She delivered influential knowledge products on fiscal policy, debt and growth, including while working with the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist in the World Bank’s Research Department. Doerte has represented the World Bank in international fora, such as the International Financial Architecture Working Group (IFAWG) of the G20 and the Paris Club. She holds a PhD in economics from University Pompeu Fabra (Spain).

Serdar Yilmaz is the Practice Manager for the Public Finance and Procurement Unit at the World Bank. He has broad experience in the related areas of fiscal decentralization, public expenditure management, subnational governance, and governmental accountability. Throughout his twenty-five year tenure at the World Bank, he has provided technical assistance and contributed to policy reforms in low and middle-income countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and East Asia regions. In addition to his task management responsibilities, Serdar makes original contributions to the literature. Serdar holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University. 

Rémy Pigois is an economist and senior social policy expert with more than 20 years of international experience in poverty reduction, social protection, and public finance. He is currently Chief of Public Finance and Local Governance at UNICEF Headquarters, leading the organization’s global work on fiscal policy and governance for children. Over the course of his career, Rémy has played a pivotal role in shaping large-scale social protection reforms across Africa, the Middle East, and the Maghreb. As UNICEF’s Social Policy Manager for the Maghreb, he spearheaded the design and implementation of major child-sensitive social protection systems, including the institutionalization of child benefits covering half a million children in Tunisia and the rollout of innovative cash transfer programmes in fragile contexts. Previously, as Chief of Social Policy in Ethiopia and Senegal, he oversaw multi-million-dollar programmes linking “cash plus” transfers, strengthened fiscal governance, and advanced evidence-based policymaking. His leadership in Ethiopia contributed to the integration of child-sensitive approaches into the national Productive Safety Net Programme. As an actuary and economist, he has worked in the private sector and for the Ministries of Economy and Finance in Paris, Singapore, and Chad. Rémy brings a unique blend of technical expertise in economics, actuarial analysis, and public finance, combined with proven experience in policy dialogue, programme design, and team leadership.

In a career spanning over 30 years, Manoj has had multi-faceted engagements in private & public sector. He is currently Governance Program Coordinator & Lead Governance Specialist in the Institutions Department of the World Bank. 

As a Lead specialist in World Bank, he is responsible for coordinating, task leading and managing the Public Finance work; as a Governance Program Coordinator in the Institutions department, he provides strategic leadership in South Asia for the wider governance and Public Financial Management (PFM) work. 

He has worked extensively in the area of PFM for past two decades and is leading several high-profile engagements across the globe, and more so specifically at the Federal and Sub-National levels in India. Manoj led development of two Global Tools “FinHealth” and “FinEd” at the World Bank which helps triangulate causal relationships between PFM, Health/Education Financing and Health/Education Service Delivery; and aim to help improve health service delivery by addressing PFM bottlenecks. 

He has authored, published and contributed to several reports and articles in Public Financial management arena across the world.  Prior to joining World Bank he worked with ICICI bank, the largest private sector bank in India, as a Senior Vice President; and managed relationships with top 200 major clients. He has also worked with Barclays Bank in London in their Global Loans and Syndication desk; and with Ernst & Young in Delhi as part of the assurance team. 

Yasemin Palta is a Technology and Innovation Officer at the World Bank. She leads global initiatives that bridge digital innovation, AI governance, and public finance, advising governments, regulators, and World Bank units on the responsible and ethical use of emerging technologies. She recently co-authored AI for Risk-Based Supervision and contributes to frameworks that embed ethics and scalability into digital reforms.

She holds an MBA in Finance and has completed executive programs at Stanford and MIT on AI, digital transformation, and innovation.

Joanne O. Martins is a technology and innovation leader with 20+ years of experience in digital transformation, enterprise strategy, and architecture. A founding member of the World Bank Group’s Information Technology Services (ITS) Innovation Lab, she leads design sprints, foresight, and frontier technology initiatives applying AI, blockchain, and spatial computing to address development challenges aligned with WBG priorities and the SDGs. She has collaborated with the Governance Global Practice on GovTech initiatives including a “How-To” Note on interoperability, GTAG (the Bank’s first GPT-powered AI prototype), and the concept design of a Public Finance Management tool for Pakistan’s health and education sectors. She holds a BSc in Computer Science and a Master’s in Systems Engineering and Management.

Samuel joined the World Bank in 2019. His work is focused on Public Sector Reform efforts with a specific focus on Local Public Service Delivery, Multilevel-Governance and Decentralization reforms as well as broader Public Administration Reforms. He also supports the World Bank’s efforts to strengthen Bank facilitated coalition building and human centered reform designs in operations. He co-Manages the Governance and Institutions Umbrella Program and supports the unit’s operational work.

Prior to joining the World Bank Samuel held several positions in the international development field with an NGO and UN agencies in Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Mexico.

Srinivas Gurazada (Srini), an Indian national with over three decades of experience working on public finance, public policy, economics and governance matters around the world, is the Head of PEFA Secretariat and the Global Lead Public Financial Management. Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (www.pefa.org) initiative, a partnership of eight development partners, is housed in the World Bank. PEFA is regarded as a gold standard for Public Financial Management and is being used in over 155 countries. Srini held various positions in the World Bank, as Governance Lead in Sub-Saharan Africa region, Task Team Leader, Program Manager, Global Lead Governance in Sectors, Chair of Supreme Audit Institutions (Accountability & Oversight Institutions) Community of Practices etc. He World Bank’s representative on IPSAS Board and Co-Chair of MOSAIC platform of IFAC for development of professional accounting.

Massimo Mastruzzi is a senior economist at the Fiscal Policy Global Unit.  Since joining the World Bank in 2000 he worked on a variety of innovative projects such as the flagship report on worldwide governance indicators, the implementation of governance and anti-corruption diagnostic and the BOOST program to facilitate accessibility and use of budget data worldwide.  He currently leads the PFR programmatic support platform to assist Bank teams in the effective implementation of the core diagnostics and its revamped framework.

Matt Mossman is a Senior Communications Officer at the IMF, focused on strategic communications and outreach efforts for the Global Public Finance Partnership and the Fiscal Affairs Department. Prior to joining the IMF, Matt served as Editorial Content Manager at Washington, D.C.’s Center for International Private Enterprise, and in earlier roles was a journalist covering international affairs and economic policy. He has written for publications including The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, and Businessweek. He is a graduate of the University of Windsor, in Windsor, Canada; and American University in Washington, D.C.

Amanda Sayegh is a senior economist in the Public Financial Management Division of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department and has more than 20 years of experience in public policy and public financial management. Amanda joined the IMF in 2015 and has worked with a number of countries to strengthen budget preparation, fiscal frameworks, fiscal risk analysis and management and fiscal reporting. Amanda has previously worked as Deputy Chief of Staff and Principal Budget and Economic Advisor to Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer and worked in the economic and budget departments of the Australian Treasury Department.

Chris Morrill is the Executive Director/CEO of the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) of the US & Canada, a 25,000 member professional association that advances excellence and innovation in government finance to build thriving communities. He has decades of experience in local government, serving as city manager of the City of Roanoke, VA, and Assistant City Manager and Budget Director of the City of Savannah, GA.

Chris served as Senior Municipal Finance Advisor to the South African National Treasury, assisting in the development of local government finance legislation, budget reforms, and capacity building programs. Morrill was a member of the first group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve in the former Soviet Union where he assisted the City of L’viv, Ukraine with financial management and housing privatization.

Chris is a recipient of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Roanoke Chapter) Martin Luther King, Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award and S. Kenneth Howard Award for lifetime achievement in public budgeting and financial management. He is an ICMA Credentialed Manager, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and former President of the GFOA. Morrill holds a BA from the College of the Holy Cross and an MPA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Mathieu Cloutier is the Program Manager of the Coalitions for Reforms Global Program and a Senior Economist in the Institutions Department at the World Bank. He has worked extensively on Governance operations across West and Central Africa to improve local governance, decentralization, and public financial management. He also worked on many influential knowledge and analytical products at the World Bank covering political economy, social contracts, change management, and coalition-building.

Freddy Yves Ndjemba is an Assistant Director General of the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), based in Oslo, Norway. In this role, he provides strategic oversight of a portfolio of programs aimed at strengthening the independence and performance of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), promoting public sector accountability, and supporting global anti-corruption efforts. 
 

Before assuming his current position, he held several roles within IDI, including as Senior Manager of the SAI Governance Department, where he oversees the SAI Independence Rapid Advocacy Mechanism (SIRAM) and the Global project on SAI Independence in collaboration with the OECD, IMF, and World Bank. He also served as Chief of Operations of AFROSAI in Yaoundé and as a State Auditor within the SAI of Cameroon. 
 
A performance audit specialist trained at OAG Canada and AFROSAI-E, Freddy Ndjemba brings over 15 years of international experience across Africa, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific. He is the author and contributor to several key publications on SAI independence, transparency, and institutional governance, and he frequently speaks at international forums. 
 
He holds advanced degrees in Public Financial Management (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Political Economy and Policy Analysis, and has been published several times on accountability, transparency, and institutional reform.

Dmitri Gourfinkel is a Senior Governance Specialist at the World Bank Institutions Global Department. He has 20+ years of professional experience in public financial management and fiduciary compliance in a number of countries in Latin America and Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia and Middle East and North Africa regions, focusing specifically on public sector accounting, and financial and sustainability reporting agendas. Before joining the Bank in 2007, Mr. Gourfinkel held several posts in both national and sub-national governments in Mexico, including federal Ministry of Finance and Supreme Audit Institution of Mexico City. He is an author of several articles published in specialized magazines, including Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management and Mexico’s Public Accounting and Executives in Finance Journals. He is a Certified Public Accountant by Mexican Institute of Charter Accountants and holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Patrick, a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Director who joined the World Bank in 2009, has extensive experience addressing governance issues, including public financial management, corporate governance, sustainability reporting, integrated reporting, strengthening the accountancy profession, and digital technology. He has participated in a diverse range of projects advancing these agendas.

Patrick is currently co-leading a trust-funded project that supports the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) in developing sustainability reporting standards for the public sector. He also serves as a member of the IPSASB Sustainability Reference Group. Patrick played a key role in establishing and convening the Africa Integrated Reporting Council (AIRC), which promotes and supports the adoption of integrated thinking, sustainability reporting, and integrated reporting across Africa. He has supported numerous initiatives on these reforms throughout the continent. Additionally, he is one of the leaders of the World Bank Group Integrated Reporting Community of Practice.

Ameya is a Research Fellow in ODI's Development and Public Finance Programme, where he co-leads the Digital Public Finance Hub. His research focuses on emerging trends in the adoption of digital tools and ways of working, especially for public financial management, and by governments more broadly.

Prior to joining ODI, Ameya has worked in policy advocacy and research roles in multiple sectors, most recently with eGovernments Foundation, where he helped set up data governance and monitoring and evaluation practices for gov tech systems, and before that with Tata Sons and the International Peace Institute.

Ameya completed Bachelors' degrees in psychology and law from Mumbai University, and a dual MA and LLM from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He also holds a Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification, and is a Faculty Fellow at the Takshashila Institution, where he teaches policy analysis.

Daniel Ortega Nieto is the Program Manager of the World Bank’s Public Sector Innovation and GovTech Program. The Program provides support to operations to promote the use of frontier technologies. Before this responsibility, Daniel was based in Jakarta, where he managed Indonesia’s Public Financial Management Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Previously, he led the public sector management operations in Brazil. During his tenure in Brasilia, he designed and led the Pro-Gestão Program, a US$1 billion credit line to improve fiscal and public financial management across Brazilian states. He has worked across regions and Governance issues, supporting projects and analytical work in Argentina, Bangladesh, Colombia, Croatia, Ecuador, India, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, and Uruguay, among others. Daniel holds an M.A. from the London School of Economics and a PhD from Georgetown University

Rebecca Rouse has over fifteen years of experience in financial inclusion and financial health, digital financial services, payments, research, and impact measurement. Rebecca joins the World Bank from USAID, where she served as Team Lead for Digital Financial Services within the Office of Digital Technology. As part of USAID, she oversaw major global initiatives such as the $60M Women in the Digital Economy Fund, Digital Invest, and the Trust and Competition in Digital Economies initiative with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. She also led USAID’s work on migrant remittances as part of the Agency’s first ever Global Migration Task Team. Prior to joining USAID, Rebecca served for seven years as the Director of Financial Inclusion at Innovations for Poverty Action, a nonprofit research and policy organization. During her time at IPA, she designed global research programs on financial consumer protection, interoperable payment systems, mobile money cost and affordability, G2P payment client experience, and women’s economic empowerment. Rebecca has also worked on digital payments, cross-border remittances, and financial inclusion at the Inter-American Development Bank, IOM Moldova, FINCA Peru, Banco de Ahorro y Credito Union in the Dominican Republic, and the Inter-American Dialogue. Rebecca is fluent in Spanish and holds an MPA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, as well as a BA in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College.

Prabhat Kumar is Director, Public Finance Management at Janaagraha, a 24 years old civic society organization working in India on strengthening Urban Local Governments (ULGs). At Janaagraha he works with Constitutional bodies such as Finance Commissions, Supreme Audit Institutions,  Govt. of India, State Government and Urban Local Governments for advocacy and implementation of sound public finance management practices in Urban Local Governments. He has b led launch of www.cityfinance.in (repository of audited financial information on urban local governments), led development of local government accounting manual for two states Odisha & Assam and working in accounting, budgeting reforms and digitization of  PFM in these states. He has set up system for digital grant management system for operationalization of 15th Finance Commission grants to ULGs . Prabhat is working on setting up a collabrorative "India Public Finance Collaborative" along with other organizations for collaboration among organization and advocacy for PFM reforms in India.

Viktor is leading our support to Ukraine to reconstruct and modernize the country after Russia’s illegal invasion, leveraging the transformational open contracting reforms in Ukraine since 2014 to help the country build back better. He also chairs Ukraine’s Reconstruction Integrity, Sustainability and Efficiency (RISE) Coalition, a group of 35+ organizations focusing on embedding open contracting principles and approaches into the recovery program. Viktor works closely with government, business, and civil society to make sure that Ukraine’s reconstruction is a role-model of open government and open contracting for the world. He is also an advisor to Nadiia Bigun, Deputy Minster of Economy responsible for public procurement.

Before joining the Open Contracting Partnership, Viktor was acting CEO at SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine – the central purchasing body set up by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine for medical public procurement.

Between 2015 and 2018 he was a Program Director at Transparency International Ukraine. His portfolio included five significant initiatives – ProZorro, ProZorro.Sale systems development, DOZORRO community building, e-Health system development, and Construction Sector Transparency Initiative implementation.  He has experience in the private sector and in government. He headed the procurement risk assessment division in one of the biggest agro-holdings of Ukraine and worked in the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.

Viktor has a Master’s degree in International Economy from Kyiv National Economic University in Ukraine and studied Organizational Behavior and Intercultural Marketing at the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien in Austria.

Open contracting is collaborating, communicating and using technology for innovating development – all of which have been a focus of Georg’s professional career prior to joining the Open Contracting Partnership where he manages communication and advocacy. At the Inter-American Development Bank, Georg has led the Digital Strategy of the Multilateral Investment Fund focussed on supporting micro, small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs in Latin America. He also co-initiated the organisation’s portfolio of projects testing social innovations such as crowdfunding. The nexus to transparency and anticorruption originated at Transparency International where he managed online and internal communications of the global movement and led the discussion of solutions to use technology to fight corruption. He has worked in development projects in Mexico and Morocco and holds a Masters in Strategic Economic and Social Communications from the University of Fine Arts in Berlin

Antonia Ida Grafl is an economist with nearly two decades of professional experience in PFM, public sector management, and the political economy of reform implementation. Throughout her career, she has served in advisory, supervisory, and managerial capacities across diverse public sector institutions, including government agencies, SOEs, and international organizations such as Austria's Ministry of Finance and the World Bank. 

Over recent years, she has established a distinctive profile in climate finance & governance, with particular expertise in integrating climate considerations into public financial management systems. Currently working as an international consultant, Grafl collaborates with numerous international organizations, has authored various studies, and has supported extensive research and reform initiatives in these specialized areas.

She also serves as a member of the PEFA advisory board, contributing to the global dialogue on public financial management and its ongoing development. She maintains strong connections to academia as an external lecturer at Lucerne University in Switzerland, which continues to inform her consulting approach, ensuring her work remains both evidence-based and research-informed.