Sabine Bernabè is Vice President and Director-General of the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), World Bank Group, since 2023. 

Sabine leads IEG at a critical juncture for the World Bank Group (WBG), holding it accountable for the implementation of the Better Bank Initiative and helping it learn throughout the process to inform course correction and enhance the effectiveness of the WBG activities in the future. 

Sabine’s vision for IEG is to deliver on this challenge by focusing on three core values and three strategic priorities to increase the value and impact of evaluations. The three core values are independence, for unbiased assessments, stakeholder engagement, which builds trust and ensures relevance, and timeliness and quality to deliver credible evidence that arrives at the right time to inform decision-making. 

The three strategic priorities include a commitment to harnessing new data, technology, and methods to improve the rigor and quality of evaluations. The second priority is to enhance local engagementand capacity development by collaborating more closely with country partners through initiatives like the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI), which focuses on building robust national monitoring and evaluation systems. The third priority is a stronger focus on outcomes, to assess the deep impacts of World Bank Group interventions.  

Sabine has over 20 years’ international development experience in evaluation, policy, and research across several international organizations and academia. Before leading IEG, Sabine led the Evaluation Function of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group. She fostered knowledge management and strengthened the function’s analytical skills, promoted evaluation-based dialogue and exchanges with Management and the Board on issues of critical importance to the EIB Group and fostered collaborative relationships with heads of evaluation of other international organizations. 

Previously, Sabine worked as an economist for the World Bank, the EIB, UNDP and the University of K.U. Leuven. She also worked, taught and published on a range of topics including poverty, inequality, labor markets, growth and financial sector development. 

Sabine earned a Ph. D from the London School of Economics and a master’s degree from SDA Bocconi.