Safaa El Tayeb El-Kogali is the Manager for East and Southern Africa in the Education Global Practice at the World Bank, based in Washington, DC. Prior to that, she was the Education Manager for the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA).
Ms. El-Kogali is a leading international development expert with more than 20 years of experience in government policy dialogue, strategic leadership, program management, and research. Her work focuses mainly on education, labor markets, poverty, youth and gender. Since joining the World Bank in 2000, Ms. El-Kogali has provided policy advice, technical support and program management in human development to countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East. She has held numerous senior positions within the institution, including Manager, Lead Specialist, Sector Leader, and Senior Economist, leading major operations and teams across various departments and regions.
Between 2008 and 2012, Ms. El-Kogali was the Regional Director for West Asia and North Africa at the Population Council, based in Cairo, overseeing innovative operational research and programs across several Arab countries before returning to the World Bank. She has presented in numerous international conferences across the world on education and published various studies, including the recently launched World Bank flagship report, Expectations and Aspirations: A new Framework for Education in the Middle East and North Africa (2018) and the book, Expanding Opportunities for the Next Generation: Early Childhood Development in the Middle East and North Africa (2015).
Ms. El-Kogali is a Sudanese national and has a Master of Philosophy degree with distinction in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter @Safaa_elkogali.