Rome, 16 December 2009 – Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), announced to the Fund’s Executive Board, currently meeting at its Rome headquarters that Yukiko Omura, a Japanese national with more than 25 years of experience in international finance and development, will be the seventh Vice-President of IFAD, effective 1 February 2010.

In her most recent role as Executive Vice President of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank Group, Omura achieved unprecedented results in emphasizing the importance of infrastructure investment for development outcomes.

She began her career as a project economist with the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC. After spending 10 years with JP Morgan, she held senior positions at Lehman Brothers, UBS Japan and the Dresdner Bank. In 2002, she founded the AIDS Prevention Fund, a charitable company based in London.