ADB appoints Rahman as the director-general in South Asia unit

NEW DELHI: Multilateral lending agency Asian Development Bank has appointed S Hafeez Rahman of Bangladesh as the director-general of the bank's South Asia department to handle operations in the region, including India.

Rahman would look after the ADB operations in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

"Rahman, who took up the appointment on January 11, was formerly the director-general of ADB's Pacific Department, where he was responsible for ADB's work in its 14 Pacific member countries," the bank said in a statement.

Prior to this, he has spent two years as Deputy Director General of the South Asia Department, and worked in the unit for eight years.

Rahman joined ADB in 1992 and led the resumption of ADB operations in Vietnam in 1994 and Afghanistan in 2002-2003.

He was also the country Director in Nepal at the peak of the civil conflict from 2003-2006, and was deeply involved in ADB's stabilization and recovery assistance work in the nations hardest hit by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-99.

He was appointed to head ADB's Task Force during the food crisis of 2008, and is currently involved in another Task Force overseeing ADB's response to the global economic crisis.