UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Ajay Chhibber of India as United Nations Development Programme's assistant secretary-general, assistant administrator and director of its Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific.
Chhibber replaced Hafiz Pasha, who finished his assignment in December last year.
The Indian will lead the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, a region which is now by far the most rapidly growing in the world.
While there is impressive progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in the region, there remain significant problems of poverty, environmental constraints and equity. The bureau concentrates its efforts on supporting the governments in the region in facing these challenges and consolidating the progress made.
Chhibber has had a diverse career at the World Bank for more than 25 years, covering both research and policy issues, and has worked across Asia.
Currently, he is the country director for Vietnam, where he manages more than one billion dollars in lending. He was previously director of the Independent Evaluation Group and a manager in the Eastern European and Asian departments of the World Bank.
He was staff director on the World Development Report in 1997 and served as a senior economist at the World Bank. He published widely on development and policy issues.
Before joining the World Bank, Chhibber was a consultant researcher for Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Prior to that he worked at the Planning Commission and was also a lecturer in economics at the University of Delhi.
He holds a doctorate from Stanford University and a master's degree from the Delhi School of Economics.
