Kemal Derviş, former Minister of State for the Economy and former CHP Istanbul Deputy, died at the age of 74
Kemal Derviş (born 10 January 1949 in Istanbul – died 8 May 2023), Turkish economist and politician. He served as the first vice president of the World Bank. He served as the Head of the United Nations Development Programme. He was the only Turk to hold these posts.
His father is Turkish and his mother is German. After receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics from the London School of Economics in England, he received his doctorate from Princeton University in the USA.
After teaching economics at METU and Princeton University between 1973-77, he joined the World Bank in 1977. In 1996, he was promoted to the vice president responsible for the Middle East and North Africa in this institution.
After two financial crises in November 2000 and February 2001, he was invited to Turkey. He resigned from his duty at the World Bank, which he had held for 22 years, and on March 13, 2001, he assumed the position of Minister of State Responsible for the Economy in the Bülent Ecevit Government. By conducting negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he ensured that the financial crisis was overcome with minimal damage. He prepared the Strong Economy Program, which provided a radical restructuring of the financial system. In August 2002, he disagreed with the Deputy Prime Minister, Devlet Bahçeli, and resigned from his post. Together with İsmail Cem, Zeki Eker and Hüsamettin Özkan, he participated in the founding of the New Turkey Party. However, he did not join this party and became a deputy candidate from the Republican People's Party.
In the November 3, 2002 elections, he was elected as an Istanbul deputy from the CHP. He resigned from his parliamentary position on May 9, 2005 and was appointed as the head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). In 2009, he handed over this post to Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand.
In March 2005, he published his book For a Better Globalism in collaboration with the Center for Global Development. In addition, Derviş's book, General Equilibrium Models for Development Policy, published jointly with Jaime De Melo, became a common textbook taught at universities in the 80s. He is currently married to his second wife, the American Catherine Derviş, and is the author of the book "Recovery from the Crisis and Contemporary Social Democracy" published in 2006. In his statement to the Financial Times in May 2008, he stated that there will be an inflation tsunami in countries such as Turkey and Brazil and that the people in these countries have become 25% poorer in less than a year.
He is the 7th generation granddaughter of the grand vizier Halil Hamid Pasha, who was the only person who, apart from his wife, I. Abdülhamid shed tears after.
Kemal Derviş, who is also a member of the Sabancı University International Advisory Board, has been receiving treatment for a while.