Barry Maher

Barry is a senior financial sector specialist working in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice based in Pretoria, South Africa where he coordinates the work of the World Bank on Crisis and Disaster Risk Financing in the Africa region.  Barry is a qualified actuary with experience in the non-life insurance sector, the carbon and renewable energy markets, financial inclusion, social protection, the MSME sector, and disaster risk financing. His career includes experience working with a Lloyds of London reinsurance syndicate, as a chief actuary in an insurance agency, and with the UN where he led the expansion of micro-insurance in the Pacific.  Since joining the World Bank, Barry has led the work on developing public-private sector partnerships to support agriculture insurance in Kenya, Bangladesh, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa and India.  He spearheaded the work on developing financing strategies to support shock-responsive safety nets, which has now grown into a global portfolio in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.  He also provided technical support to actuarial work of Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance Global Team of the World Bank, including the financial modeling of the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative, which provides Pacific Islands with insurance protection against tropical cyclone and earthquake events. More recently in the Africa region, Barry has been expanding the use of risk financing tools and principles in FCI and more broadly the Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Vice Presidency unit of the World Bank.  As countries emerge from the health and fiscal impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, Barry is focusing on strengthening the resilience of key sectors for economic growth and job creation to shocks, including in particular MSMEs.

Barry holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Actuarial and Financial Studies from the University College of Dublin and a Masters in Statistics from the University of Oxford, both with distinction.