Gabi G. Afram is currently a Senior Financial Economist at the World Bank’s South Asia Finance and Private Sector Development Unit and a Country Sector Coordinator for Finance and Private Sector Development in South Asia. He has 17 years of experience in banking, financial sector development, project management and economic policy research. Mr. Afram joined the World Bank in Washington, DC in 2005 as a young professional. He has led various projects and authored several studies and policy notes on South Asia and the Middle East. His project work has focused on financial inclusion, support to MSMEs through lending and matching grants, support for value-chains development, rural finance development, lending and TA to financial institutions to help expand their lending to MSMEs, risk-sharing facilities, remittances and investment climate reforms. Prior to that, he worked as project manager and senior consultant on private sector development in Jordan, and has also worked at the Central Bank of Jordan and the Economic Section of the Embassy of The United States of America in Amman. He holds two Masters' degrees in finance and economics from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and the Kiel Institute of World Economics in Kiel, Germany. Mr. Afram is a native Arabic speaker, fluent in English, and has a good command of the French language.