The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick has appointed Isabel Guerrero as Vice President for South Asia Region.

Ms Guerrero took over from retiring Vice President Praful Patel on July 2, a World Bank release said on Thursday.

Guerrero, who moves to her new position from that of County Director for India joined the bank as a "young professional" in 1982. Early in her career she worked as a country economist for the Philippines, Myanmar, Morocco and the Central Asian Republics with a focus on macroeconomics, trade and poverty.

For the past eleven years she has been a country director, for Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru (1997-2002); Colombia and Mexico (2002-2007); and most recently India, where she took up the position in March 2007.

"It is a most special privilege to be invited to take on this role in one of the most important regions of the world as measured by the development agenda," Guerrero said in Washington.

She said "South Asia is a region of extraordinary hope as demonstrated by its aggressive growth over the past decade. It is also a region in which the range of profound human challenges stand out starkly, from poverty to conflict to tremendous environmental management issues. Finding solutions in South Asia means finding solutions to some of the most intractable problems facing our world."

Guerrero said her time in India had also demonstrated to her the region's phenomenal capacity to find those solutions with the sort of innovation and intellectual creativity that was already driving the sub-continent into the world's imagination.

Announcing her appointment Zoellick said she brought to the task a strong track record in development and a commitment to finding cutting-edge solutions that would serve the region and her clients well.

During her first months in the position Guerrero will visit all the countries of South Asia.