Dr Taffere Tesfachew

Taffere Tesfachew (PhD) is currently the Acting Managing Director of the UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries, Gebze, Turkey. Prior to joining the Technology Bank, he was a Senior Advisor with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI). Until April 2016, Dr Tesfachew was the Director of the Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes (ALDC) at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In this capacity, he coordinated UNCTAD’s support to nearly 90 developing countries and led a team of economists who conducted research and analysis for two major annual reports published by UNCTAD namely, the “Economic Development in Africa Report” (EDAR) and the “Least Developed Countries Report” (LDCR)”.

Dr Tesfachew has over three decades of national and international experience on trade and development and the interrelated issues of investment, technology, industrial policy, enterprise development and regional integration. He has an extensive track record in conducting and directing policy-focused research and providing policy advice to governments in many developing countries. He has represented the UN in various national, regional, and multilateral fora including providing evidence and expert advice to an enquiry by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trade and Poverty. He is also a member of the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP), a high-level expert group and a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Dr Tesfachew holds an MA degree in Economics from the University of Lancaster, UK, and an MPhil and a PhD in Economics from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. He is a regular guest speaker at high-level national and international fora.