Scott Morris

Scott Morris is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, director of the center’s US Development Policy program and co-director of the Sustainable Development Finance program. His research addresses development finance issues, debt policy, governance issues at international financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF, and Chinese development finance.

Morris served as deputy assistant secretary for development finance and debt at the US Treasury Department in the Obama Administration. In that capacity, he led US engagement with the multilateral development banks, as well as US participation in the Paris Club of official creditors. During his time at Treasury, Morris led negotiations for four general capital increases at the multilateral development banks and replenishments of the International Development Association (IDA), Asian Development Fund, and African Development Fund.

Morris was a senior staff member on the Financial Services Committee in the US House of Representatives, where he was responsible for the Committee’s international policy issues, including the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (the landmark reform of the CFIUS process), as well multiple reauthorizations of the US Export-Import Bank charter and approval of a $108 billion financing agreement for the International Monetary Fund in 2009. Previously, Morris was a vice president at the Committee for Economic Development in Washington, DC.

Morris serves on the international advisory panel of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the eminent group of independent advisors for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the executive committee of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network. He is also co-chair of the International Financial Institutions working group, a diverse coalition of US-based organizations seeking to promote effective US participation in multilateral institutions.