Title
Director
Company
Sustainable Development, Latin America and Caribbean Region, World Bank
Bio
Ede Jorge Ijjasz Vasquez is the Director for Sustainable Development for the World Bank’s Latin
America and Caribbean region, covering infrastructure, environment and climate change, social
development, agriculture and rural development, disaster risk management, and urban development.
Prior to this position, Mr Ijjasz spent four years in the Beijing office as Sector Manager of the
Sustainable Development Unit for China and Mongolia. Between 2004 and 2007, he managed
the Water and Sanitation and the Energy Sector Management Assistance progammes, two of the
longest-running global trust-funded partnership programmes administered by the World Bank,
with more than 150 staff across 25 countries in Africa, South Asia, East Asia and Latin America.
Before this, Mr Ijjasz was leader of the Corporate Environment Strategy Implementation Team
and acting sector manager of the central Environment Department in charge of World Bank
environmental policies and global programmes. He has also worked for the World Bank as a water
and sanitation specialist and environmental specialist. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr Ijjasz was
a Senior Associate with ICF Kaiser International, where he provided technical and policy advisory
services to the US Environmental Protection Agency on pollution issues, and led the preparation of
environmental impact assessments of large infrastructure projects in Latin America and the US. Mr
Ijjasz is also currently a lecturer in the Environmental Science and Policy Master’s programme at
Johns Hopkins University. He has a PhD and MSc from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a specialisation in hydrology and water resources.
