The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has appointed Scott Morris as vice-president, East and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, for a period of three years. He will be responsible for the management of the bank’s operations in the three regions.

Morris is an expert on development finance and debt policy with more than 25 years of experience in international economic policymaking and research. He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) in Washington, DC, where he has been director of the US Development Policy Program and co-director of the Sustainable Development Finance Program. Morris was co-director of the 2015 High-Level Panel on the Future of Multilateral Development Banking and the principal author of an independent evaluation of the merger in 2014 of ADB’s Asian Development Fund with its ordinary capital resources balance sheet.

At CGD, he has led work on multilateral and bilateral development finance, including the role of concessional finance in supporting low-income and climate-vulnerable countries.

Morris previously served as deputy assistant secretary for development finance and debt in the United States Treasury, where he worked closely with senior government officials across Asia and the Pacific and with various non-governmental organizations. He oversaw the participation of the US in multilateral institutions, including ADB, the African Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World Bank.

Morris worked as the principal staff member of the US House of Representatives committee on financial services and adviser to the committee chair on international financial and economic issues. He held oversight roles on committee matters relevant to international financial institutions and the US Export–Import Bank, international investment issues, exchange rates, monetary policy, and trade in financial services.

Morris holds a master of public policy studies (international economics) from the University of Michigan, Institute for Public Policy Studies. He obtained a bachelor of arts degree in government from Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.