Yasuhiko Matsuda is the World Bank Country Manager for Malaysia. Since joining the World Bank initially as a consultant in 1996 and then as a Young Professional in 1997, Mr. Matsuda has worked on a range of development issues especially, public sector governance, public financial management, service delivery in education, health, and social protection in Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, East Asia & Pacific, and South Asia.
Over his 25-year career at the World Bank, Mr. Matsuda has led a range of operational tasks in multiple countries in multiple regions, with emphasis on knowledge-based advisory services. In Nairobi (1997-98), he contributed to preparation of the World Bank¡¯s Country Assistance Strategy for Kenya. As an expert on applied political economy analysis, he subsequently played a central role in developing the Bank¡¯s official governance diagnostic, Institutional & Governance Reviews (IGR), with applications in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
He led the World Bank¡¯s fiscal and public management engagement in Brazil (2000-06) and governance engagement in the Philippines (2006-13), in both cases from the respective country offices in Brasilia (2002-06) and Manila (2006-09) as well as from the World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC. He then switched to human development to focus his work on service delivery issues and led the Bank¡¯s social protection team in Nepal (2014-16) before taking up the role of Program Leader to coordinate the World Bank¡¯s engagements on human development and goverannce in Afghanistan, based in Kabul (2017-20).
His most recent assignment was Lead Specialist, Human Capital Project, where he spearheaded development and piloting of outcome-oriented public expenditure and institutional reviews focused on select human capital issues. He holds a BA in political science from Waseda Univesity, Japan and a Ph. D in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, USA.