Somalia: a “white” at the head of the central bank?

Nigel Roberts, who is head of the Somali Central Bank, has been working in international development for almost 40 years and spent much of his time in the field. Between 1968 and 1978, he worked for various development NGOs, including VSO (in Thailand), the British Trust Trust in Nepal and the Save the Children Fund (in Nepal), and as a journalist (in Hong Kong). Nigel joined the World Bank in 1981 as an agricultural economist. Prior to co-leading the World Development Report team, he served for nearly 20 years as the Bank's Field Director and then as Director of the Bank (Nepal, Ethiopia, West Bank and Gaza, Sydney / Pacific). Nigel holds a Master's degree in English Literature from Oxford and a Master's degree in Agricultural Economics from Reading University, UK. He was a Postgraduate Research Fellow in Development Economics at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, 1992-1993.