Jean-michel Severino

Biography

Jean-Michel SEVERINO was born on September 6, 1957 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He is a graduate of the École Nationale d’Administration, ESCP, IEP Paris and holds a postgraduate degree (DEA) in economics and a degree in law. After four years working at the Inspection générale des finances (French General Inspection of Finance) (1984-1988), he was named technical advisor for economic and financial affairs at the French Ministry of Cooperation (1988-1989). He later became the Head of that Ministry’s Department of Economic and Financial Affairs and then its Development Director. In all these positions, he was particularly active in macroeconomic and financial relations, as well as the management of political and humanitarian crises, in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1996, he was recruited by the World Bank as Director for Central Europe at a time when this region was marked by the end of the Balkans conflict and reconstruction. He became the World Bank’s Vice-President in charge of East Asia from 1997 to 2001 and focused on the management of the major macroeconomic and financial crisis that shook these countries. After a brief stint working once again for the French government as Inspector General of Finance, he was named Chief Executive Officer of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), where from 2001 to 2010 he led the expansion efforts to cover the entire emerging and developing world, notably in the Mediterranean region, Asia and Latin America, while still maintaining its strong roots in sub-Saharan Africa. He significantly expanded the bank’s development activities and extended its areas of responsibility to a large number of new countries as well as contemporary global issues: climate, biodiversity, poverty, growth, etc. He also implemented a significant restructuring of the AFD by entering into close partnerships with the local and international industrial and financial private sector. In 2010, at the end of his third term of office, he returned once again to the Inspection générale des finances, where he was responsible for the French Water Partnership. In May 2011, he left the civil service in order to head up “I&P (Investisseurs et Partenaires)”, a fund management company specializing in financing African small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to his professional duties, he has significant experience in the educational and research areas, notably as an associate professor at CERDI (Centre d’Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International). He was elected as a member of the Académie des Technologies (2010); he is currently a senior fellow of the Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International (FERDI) and of the German Marshall Fund (GMF). He has published numerous articles and books, including, in 2010, “Idées reçues sur le développement” and “Le temps de l’Afrique” and, in 2011, “Le grand basculement”.  

Research Interest

 Management, Food