Varalakshmi Vemuru

Vara Vemuru is the Practice Manager for the Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice in the ECA region of the World Bank. Till recently she was leading the World Bank’s development response to address impacts of forced displacement in the Horn of Africa region through operations and analytics. She also led operations on women’s economic empowerment in Nigeria and India. Vara has worked extensively in the South Asia and Africa regions on broad ranging social development issues including inclusion, women’s empowerment, disability inclusion including addressing mental health issues, conflict sensitive development and social accountability. Her recent work has focused on fragile and conflict-affected contexts in Africa. Vara has been with the World Bank since 2000.