The Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has elected Odile Renaud-Basso of France as the Bank’s next President.
Currently Director-General at the French Treasury, Renaud-Basso replaces Sir Suma Chakrabarti, who stepped down in July after serving two full four-year terms. She will assume office later this year.
The election took place today during the EBRD’s 2020 Annual Meeting, which was held in a virtual session and postponed from May due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Following her election, Ms Renaud-Basso said: “It is a great honour for me to have been elected as the new President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a truly unique institution. I wish to express my thanks to all the countries that supported my candidacy, with whom I have had numerous and fruitful exchanges in the past few months. I look forward to working with all shareholders, the management and the staff in the coming months, to implement the ambitious roadmap that was just agreed at the Annual Meeting.”
The Acting President of the EBRD, Jürgen Rigterink, said: “I congratulate Odile Renaud-Basso on her election. She will bring huge international experience to the EBRD and I know the Bank will be in very good hands as it enters the next chapter in its thirty-year success story. I look forward to welcoming her to our institution.”
As Director General at the French Treasury, Ms Renaud-Basso has overseen the development of France’s economic policies, leading on European and international financial affairs, trade policies, financial regulation and debt management.
In this position, she also served as Vice-President of the European Economic and Financial Committee, deputy to the G7 and G20 groups and French Governor or Alternate Governor of the World Bank, EBRD and African Development Bank. She is also Chair of the Paris Club.
Prior to her current role, she was Deputy Director-General of the Caisse des Dépôts, a large French public financial institution.
Renaud-Basso is a graduate of the Paris Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), and an Ecole Nationale d’Administration alumnus. She also attended Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
For her part, Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al Mashat, congratulated France’s Odile Renaud-Basso as next president of the EBRD.
This came during the minister’s participation in the annual EBRD meetings that were held virtually throughout this week.
She noted that this should encourage more women to change the face of the male-dominated field of international organizations and to be appointed to high profile positions.
As a representative of Egypt, the minister participated in the annual meeting to discuss the bank’s new economic recovery plan for 2021-2025, which is an ambitious plan to expand climate investments and push for a green recovery.
During the meetings, she noted that Egypt became EBRD’s largest market for investment for the second year in a row, with the bank’s investments reaching €1.2bn in 23 projects, with 80% in the private sector.
“Our portfolio with the EBRD is distributed evenly between sustainable infrastructure (52%), industry and agribusiness (26%), and financial institutions (22%). The portfolio focuses on renewable energy, small and medium-sized enterprises, women in business, youth in business, energy efficiency, and credit lines,” she noted.
She added that reform is a continuous process, and the Egyptian government is keen on implementing structural reforms to ensure that the country accelerates its path towards sustainable growth.
“We entered the crisis with strong fiscal and foreign exchange buffers due to comprehensive reforms on taxes, budgets and foreign exchange that the country implemented over the years, which helped prepare Egypt facing the crisis,” Al Mashat said.
