Vera Songwe

Vera Songwe is Chair and Founder of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility. She is also a senior advisor to the Bank for International Settlements, where her work focuses on credit risk cycles and associated regulatory and supervisory measures. Her work also includes the treatment of climate and nature in the Basel III framework.

Vera co-chairs the Independent Group of Experts on Climate Finance for the Brazilian G20 (TF-Clima) and is the Co-Chair of the Independent High-Level Expert Panel on Climate Finance, alongside Lord Nick Stern. Under the last three COP presidencies, they have worked to build the climate investment narrative as the defining growth story of the 21st century.

Vera is a visiting senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in the Department of Global Economy and Development. She is also an International Development Association Champion, working with countries, multilateral development banks, and the private sector to provide liquidity to countries that need a bridge to green growth.

She is the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa. Serving from 2017 to 2022, she was the first woman to lead the organisation in its 60-year history.