Francis Ghesquiere

Francis Ghesquiere is the Practice Manager for the World Bank East Asia and Pacific Region, where he supervises the portfolio of Urban Development and Disaster Risk Management for China, Mongolia, Vietnam and Philippines. He has been working for the World Bank since the year 2000, and is known for his leadership on several flagship initiatives, including the establishment of Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), the Central America Probabilistic Risk Modeling Initiative, and the Understanding Risk Forum (UR). He was also key in the design of new policy instruments to help accelerate World Bank response to disasters, including the policy on emergency operations and innovative contingent financing instruments such as the CAT-DDO and Contingent Emergency Response Components.  Mr. Ghesquiere was the Head of the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Management (GFDRR) until June 2018.  He holds a Master Degree from the Harvard School of Government and an Engineering Degree from the University of Louvain. He also studied Finance and Economics at New York University, ESADE Barcelona and HEC Paris.