GPPi advisory board member Kemal Dervis nominated to head UNDP

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has nominated Kemal Dervis to head the United Nations Development Programme. Mr. Dervis served for two years as Turkey’s finance minister following his 22-year tenure at the World Bank, where he was both Vice President for Middle East and North Africa and Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. He also led the World Bank’s reconstruction efforts in war-torn Bosnia after the Dayton peace accords. He is currently a member of the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, and is in that capacity also a member of the Joint Commission of the European and Turkish Parliaments. The top spot at the UNDP, one of the most powerful positions at the UN, was vacated when Mark Malloch Brown, who is also on the GPPi’s advisory board, left earlier this year to become Annan’s chief of staff.