Africa-Press – Lesotho. Marie Françoise Marie-Nelly has been appointed the World Bank’s new Country Director for Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, South Africa and Namibia. Marie-Nelly has extensive experience working in the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan regions in countries with diverse set of contexts and different development needs and trajectories.
Marie-Nelly will focus on overseeing the World Bank’s policy dialogue and strategic engagements with the governments and key partners and will lead the World Bank teams to identify innovative development solutions for all clients.
“I am excited by the move to the Southern Africa region,” Marie-Nelly said in a statement released by the World Bank on Tuesday.
“I look forward to deepening the World Bank engagement working together with government counterparts, key stakeholders including the youth and development partners to support countries’ efforts to achieve their development priorities in line with the World Bank’s goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity,” she said.
Since joining the World Bank in 1994, Marie-Nelly has held a variety of positions focused on public enterprise restructuring, support to private sector development, regional integration, and management of the oil sector. Before assuming the position of World Bank Country Director for the Maghreb and Malta, Marie-Nelly held a number of leadership positions.
Marie-Nelly, a Certified Public Accountant, is a former Country Director for Nigeria from 2011-2015, Country Director for the two Congos (Brazzaville and DRC) from 2008 to 2011, Director for the World Bank Group Programme related to the Chad Petroleum and the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project from 2004 to 2007 and Director for the regional integration program in Africa from 2000 to 2004.
