Melis Guven
Melis Guven is a Lead Economist and Global Lead for Social Protection Delivery Systems at the Social Protection Global Practice of the World Bank. She joined the World Bank in 2004 through the Young Professionals Program. Melis has breadth and depth of experience in all SPJ pillars--safety nets, social insurance, and labor-- in about twenty countries across different country income groups in Africa, Europe and Central Asia and South Asia regions. Before joining the Bank, Melis worked for Türkiye’s Ministry of Finance (Turkish Treasury) and was a member of the core team that led wide-ranging health insurance and pension reforms in the country. As a result, she has an in-depth understanding of decision making and prioritization in governments. In recent years, Melis has focused her technical and operational work on innovations on extending social protection coverage to the informal sector, and on social protection delivery systems to develop strategic approaches and digital tools, such as the CORE-MIS. She was also one of the two team leads of the World Bank’s Social Protection Strategy (aka SPJ Compass) which was launched in 2022.