Mohamed T. El-Ashry, Egypt
Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation
Former Chairman and CEO of the Global Environment Facility (GEF)
Mohamed T. El-Ashry is currently Senior Fellow with the UN Foundation. He has served as Chief
Executive Officer and Chairman of the Global Environment Facility from 1994 to 2003. Prior to that,
he served as the Chief Environmental Adviser to the President and Director of the Environment
Department at the World Bank, as Senior Vice President of the World Resources Institute, and as
Director of Environmental Quality with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Dr. El-Ashry also served
as Senior Environmental Adviser to UNDP, as Special Adviser to the Secretary General of the Rio
Earth Summit, and as a member of the World Water Commission. Dr. El-Ashry received his Ph.D.
in Geology from the University of Illinois, and has held teaching and research positions at Cairo
University, Illinois Geological Survey, Wilkes University and the Environmental Defense Fund. He
has received numerous international awards and honors and has been published extensively. Dr.
El-Ashry is a member of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods and is a fellow of the
Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He
is a member of the Third World and African Academies of Sciences, and serves on the Boards of a
number of not-for-profit organizations.