Diop to replace Chaudhuri as World Bank country director for Nigeria

A Senegalese national, Ndiame Diop, is set to replace Shubham Chaudhuri, a U.S. national, who grew up in India, as World Bank Country Director for Nigeria.

This was disclosed in a tweet by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Doris Nkiruka Uzoka-Anite on her X (formerly Twitter) page (@DrDorisAnite) and confirmed by a source at the World Bank.

A tweet from the minister on Monday read:

• “We’re grateful to Shubham Chaudhuri for his outstanding partnership as Country Director at @WorldBank. While it’s bittersweet to see him leave, we warmly welcome Ndiame Diop as he steps into this pivotal role. Looking forward to continued policy dialogues and fruitful exchanges with him and the entire team.”

The source confirmed that the take-over process has not been done fully but has started.

About Shubham Chaudhuri

• Shubham Chaudhuri has been serving as the Country Director for Nigeria since 2019. Before assuming this role, he was the World Bank Country Director for Afghanistan. Since his start at the Bank in 2004, Chaudhuri has held several significant positions, including Practice Manager for Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management in South Asia and Indonesia. In this role, he led macro-fiscal and economic policy-related work. He also managed the Washington DC-based team in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Department for East Asia and the Pacific.
• In his capacity as the Lead Economist for Indonesia, Chaudhuri spearheaded the economic policy dialogue, advisory services, and development policy lending efforts in Indonesia. He directed the Jakarta-based economics team that collaborates closely with governmental and development partners to advance Indonesia’s development objectives. Before his move to Jakarta in early 2008, his focus was primarily on China and regional policy issues in East Asia.
• Prior to his tenure at the bank, Chaudhuri was an economics professor for 10 years and served as Director of the Program in Economic and Political Development at Columbia University in New York. His research has been published in prominent journals such as the American Economic Review and Econometrica, covering topics from poverty and vulnerability to trade, investment climate, and fiscal decentralization. Chaudhuri earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in economics.

Ndiame Diop

• Ndiamé Diop assumed the role of World Bank Country Director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand on July 1, 2020. In this position, he managed the World Bank’s programs across these four nations and leads the policy dialogues with governmental bodies, civil society, academia, and other stakeholders.
• The World Bank’s involvement in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand encompasses a blend of advanced analytics, advisory services, and lending operations that aim to financially and technically bolster the countries’ development agendas. The World Bank team is engaged in generating internal knowledge to assist the four countries with crucial reforms and external knowledge to disseminate their innovative development successes to other developing nations.
• Diop joined the World Bank as a young professional in 2000, the same year he completed his PhD in Economics. He brings over two decades of experience at the World Bank to his current position, with a background that spans East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Before becoming Country Director, he served as Practice Manager for Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment for East Asia for four years, where he provided technical and strategic guidance to the economic team in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. Prior to this, Mr. Diop was the Lead Economist for Indonesia, spearheading the economic policy dialogue and the Bank’s advisory and development policy lending efforts in Indonesia. Earlier in his career, he served as Lead Economist for Jordan and Lebanon and was the World Bank Resident Representative for Tunisia.

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