The World Bank Group has appointed Dahlia Khalifa as Division Director for its Middle East Department, placing a seasoned Africa and MENA finance leader at the helm of the institution’s engagement across one of the world’s most complex operating regions.
In her new role, Khalifa will steer World Bank strategy across Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, with a mandate centred on private sector-led job creation, foundational infrastructure, human capital development, inclusive growth, and governance reform. Her brief calls for evidence-based policy dialogue aimed at building sustainable, resilient economic growth across the Mashreq region.
A Career Bridging Africa and the Middle East
Khalifa’s appointment caps a career that has moved fluidly between the two regions . Egyptian-American by background, she built her early career in investment banking and management consulting before founding and running financial services ventures spanning brokerage, corporate finance, and private equity across the Middle East and Africa.
She joined the The World Bank Group in 2004, and over two decades rose through senior leadership positions touching investment, climate, macroeconomics, trade, competitiveness, and youth employment. Immediately prior to this appointment, she served as IFC – International Finance Corporation ’s Regional Director for CentralAfrica and Anglophone #WestAfrica, based in Lagos, Nigeri a role in which she oversaw investment and advisory operations across ten countries, growing IFC’s regional portfolio to more than $2.5 billion across financial services, infrastructure, and agribusiness.
Khalifa’s rise to one of the World Bank Group’s most senior regional posts adds a significant name to the roster of Arab and MENA-connected women reaching the upper tiers of global development finance.
Her trajectory from entrepreneurial finance ventures, to IFC advisory leadership, to a WBG Division Director post spanning some of the region’s most fragile and strategically important economies, offers a template increasingly visible among senior women leaders shaping capital flows into the Arab world.
Dahlia holds an MA and BA in economics from the The American University in Cairo and an MA in International Law and a Ph.D in government from Georgetown University .
