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SIPA Faculty
Kemal Dervis
International Affairs Building, 13th Floor
George W. Ball Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs
Phone: 212-854-3213
kd2343@columbia.edu
Biography:
Kemal Dervis is the George W. Ball Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at SIPA, teaching global economic governance. He is also a fellow of the Committee on Global Thought.
Dervis was the head of the United Nations Development Programme, the UN's global development network, from 2005 - 2009. He was also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues at the country level.
Prior to his appointment with UNDP, Dervis was a member of the Turkish Parliament representing Istanbul from 2002 - 2005. From 2001 - 2002, Dervis was Minister for Economic Affairs and the Treasury, without party affiliation, of the Republic of Turkey. He was responsible for Turkey's recovery program after the devastating financial crisis that hit the country in February 2001. In 1977 he joined the World Bank, holding various positions including Division Chief for Industrial and Trade Strategy and Director for the Central Europe Department after the fall of the Berlin wall, a position where he later coordinated the World Bank and donor community's support to the peace and the reconstruction process in the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia. In 1996 he became Vice-President of the World Bank for the Middle East and North Africa Region, where he was active in supporting the Middle East Peace Process. In 2000, Dervis became Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, where he was responsible for the World Bank's global programmes and policies to fight poverty. He was also responsible for operational coordination with other institutions, including the United Nations system, the IMF and the WTO on international institutional and policy issues.
Dervis has published many articles in academic journals, as well as current affairs publications on topics ranging from mathematical models of growth and social mobility and quantitative models of trade, to European enlargement and transatlantic relations. A book entitled, General Equilibrium Models for Development Policy, which he co-authored, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1982 and became a widely used textbook in development economics in the 1980s. In cooperation with the Center for Global Development, he has published a new book entitled, A Better Globalization (Brookings Press, March 2005), which deals with global development issues and international institutional reform.
Dervis holds degrees in economics from the London School of Economics, and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has taught economics at the Middle East Technical University and Princeton University.