Global Courant 2023-05-12 02:02:18
Kemal Dervis, an economist who was instrumental in leading his native Turkey out of an economic crisis in the early 2000s, and who later became the first person to lead the United Nations Development Program from a country receiving development aid from the program, died on Sunday in Bethesda, Md. He was 74.
The Brookings Institution, where Mr. Dervis had been the director and vice president of the program for world economics and development and was a nonresident eminent fellow, confirmed his death. This is reported by the Turkish state news agency Anadolu said he died of an unspecified illness.
Mr. Dervis had been working for the World Bank in various positions for two decades when prices skyrocketed in Turkey in early 2001 and the currency, the lira, plummeted. The journalist Andrew Finkel wrote in April of that year that “Turks have in their wallets 10 million lira bills, the highest bill in the world, and after the recent debacle, worth well under $10.”
His policies ultimately ensured a sustained period of economic stability, said a Yavuz professor, that lasted until just a few years ago, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backed away from Mr Dervis’s policies and allowed corruption.
Mr Dervis remained at the ministry for just over a year before running for a seat in parliament; he won, and continued to serve on that body until 2005. That year, Secretary-General Kofi Annan chose him to head the United Nations Development Agency, which helps countries eradicate poverty and create sustainable economies.
It was an appointment that made history: Mr. Dervis was the first to run the office and came from a country that had benefited from it. (Previous administrators had been American or British.)