Nigel Roberts

Worked as a political economist, for over fifty years, and has lived for extended periods in Thailand, Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar, Palestine/Israel, and Sydney (covering the Western Pacific.)

He spent 30 years as a World Bank staff member, latterly as a country director (including in Palestine/Israel between 2001-6) and a research director (co-managing the 2011World Development report on Conflict, Security and Development). Since retiring from the World Bank in 2011, Nigel has worked on Somalia (as the World Bank delegate to the National Financial Governance Committee), Afghanistan (heading up an Overseas Development Institute team) and Myanmar (as director of the Joint Peace Fund).

From 2015-18, he was the Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board for the UN Peace Building Fund, and from April to December 2020 was a senior adviser to the US Congress- mandated Afghanistan Peace Process Study Group. In November 2024 the Geneva Graduate Institute published An Israeli/Palestinian Federation: An Alternative Approach to Peace, which he co-authored with Riccardo Bocco.