Kemal Derviş: The economist Turkey turned to in a crisis

Kemal Derviş helped shape Turkey’s response to its 2001 financial crisis before taking charge of the United Nations Development Programme, bringing experience in international finance to both economic recovery and the fight against poverty. The Turkish economist, who died in May 2023 aged 74, served in government, parliament and senior development roles during a career spanning several decades. 

Appointed minister responsible for economic affairs in March 2001, Derviş returned from the World Bank to a country struggling with a severe financial crisis. His immediate task was to develop a recovery programme and negotiate international backing for its implementation. 

The programme combined banking reform with measures to strengthen public finances and bring down inflation under a floating exchange rate. In February 2002, the International Monetary Fund approved a three-year credit arrangement worth about $16 billion to support Turkey’s economic programme. Around $4 billion of that total represented undisbursed funding carried over from an earlier arrangement. 

The reforms demanded difficult adjustments. Restructuring state banks, strengthening private banks and changing tax and spending policies were central to efforts to restore confidence and reduce the economy’s vulnerability to further shocks. 

Derviş left his ministerial post in August 2002 and subsequently entered electoral politics. He won a parliamentary seat representing Istanbul for the centre-left Republican People’s Party that November, serving until 2005, when he moved to the UNDP. 

As UNDP administrator from 2005 to 2009, he oversaw work on poverty reduction, recovery from crises and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. He also chaired the United Nations Development Group, giving him a wider role in coordinating the organisation’s development work. 

His international career had taken shape at the World Bank, where he held senior positions covering industrial and trade strategy and Central Europe’s economic transition. He became vice-president for the Middle East and North Africa in 1996 and vice-president for poverty reduction and economic management in 2000. His responsibilities also included an international programme supporting Bosnia’s post-war economic reconstruction. 

Born in Istanbul on 10 January 1949, Derviş studied economics at the London School of Economics before completing his doctorate at Princeton University in 1973. He taught at Princeton and Turkey’s Middle East Technical University before moving into international development. 

After leaving the UNDP, he led the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development programme from 2009 to 2017. His writing explored how international institutions could respond more effectively to economic and social challenges. His 2005 book, A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform, produced in cooperation with Ceren Özer, examined the governance of an increasingly interconnected world.