Dr Vera Songwe is the Chair of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is an economist and former United Nations Under-Secretary-General. From 2017 to 2022, she served as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
Prior to her role at the ECA, she held senior positions at the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, focusing on fiscal policy, governance, financial markets, and economic development in Africa. She has also contributed to high-level international panels on climate finance, including the G20 Independent Expert Group on MDB reform and the High-Level Panel on Climate Finance.
Dr Songwe has been consistently recognised among the “100 Most Influential Africans” and the “50 Most Powerful Women in Africa” by Forbes. Her research interests include sustainable development, debt sustainability, climate finance, and Africa’s economic transformation.