Douglas Pearce is Practice Manager for Eastern/Southern Africa in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group. Previously he was Practice Manager and Global Lead for Financial Inclusion, Infrastructure & Access. He is a core member of the Digital Economy for Africa group, and jointly led (with IFC) the Universal Financial Access 2020 initiative. Previously he led financial inclusion and private sector development operations and technical advisory work for the World Bank in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Prior to joining the World Bank he was Country Manager for DFID, led DFID’s global financial sector team, was Deputy Head of the Growth and Investment Group (also at DFID), and chaired the FIRST Initiative steering committee. While at CGAP as Senior Financial Sector Specialist he led CGAP's work in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, and introduced a program of innovation funding and research in agricultural finance. Before joining CGAP he set-up and managed a successful microfinance institution (Bosnia), and was a senior economist at the Natural Resources Institute (UK).