Samira Nikaein is a Senior Education Economist working in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Since joining the World Bank in 2014, she has worked on a range of lending operations and analytical and advisory projects in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE and West Bank & Gaza.
She is the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Focal Point for MENA and is leading this year’s Regional Flagship Study on this topic. Samira also focuses on strengthening the evidence base for education policymaking in MENA, where she has worked closely with the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) on developing an impact evaluation incubator to promote rigorous evaluations in the region. She has led or is currently leading field experiments in West Bank & Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Samira worked on different education and development policy issues including girls’ education (Mexican government), skills development in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO), ECD in Central Asia (UNICEF), and refugee education in the Middle East (UNHCR). Samira holds a Master’s Degree in International Education Policy, with a concentration in economics and statistics, from Harvard University.