Key Skills & Expertise

Task Team Leadership for International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA)-funded projects; project management for single- and multi-donor trust-funded operations; fiduciary management (procurement and financial management); results-focused Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system design; and crisis and post-conflict operations. Ms. Mahmoudi holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University and is fluent in English, Persian, and Dari.

Operational Advice, Project Design, Management & Implementation

Over 34 years at the World Bank Group (1982–2016), Ms. Mahmoudi worked across the full operational cycle, identification, pre-appraisal, appraisal, supervision, Country Portfolio Performance Reviews (CPPRs), and Implementation Completion and Results evaluations. As Senior Operations Officer and Task Team Leader, she prepared Project Concept Notes and Project Development Objectives, established key indicators for results-focused project assessment, and ensured corporate requirements on gender, climate change, citizen engagement, and environmental and social safeguards were reflected in results frameworks. She led a suite of trust-funded projects, including country-specific Institutional Development Fund (IDF) grants to the African Union Commission (AUC) and to Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, and served as Coordinator for the Remittances Agenda in the Africa Region's Finance and Private Sector Department.

Monitoring & Evaluation

Designed and implemented M&E systems with a specific focus on results for trust-funded projects; supported preparation of Implementation Status and Results Reports (ISRs), Quality Enhancement Reviews (QERs), Mid-Term Reviews, and Implementation Completion and Results Reports; and worked with Operations Policy and Country Services (OPCS) colleagues on corporate scorecards, guidance notes, and operational clinics.

Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) Country Experience

Ms. Mahmoudi has direct crisis and fragile-state operational experience in several World Bank-designated FCV countries: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Eritrea. In immediate post-Taliban Afghanistan (2001), based in-country for four months over a 15-month engagement, she worked closely with the Ministry of Finance's Treasury Department to resolve Letters of Credit and flow-of-funds problems. In South Sudan, she was a member of a corporate-level rapid-response mission applying the Bank's 2007 “Rapid Response to Crises and Emergencies” policy framework (OP/BP 8.00) to address procurement and financial-management bottlenecks in a Multi-Donor Trust Fund. In Ethiopia, immediately following the 1993 peace agreement with Eritrea, she helped structure the first quick-disbursing Structural Adjustment Credit ($250 million) and establish a monitoring unit within the National Bank of Ethiopia. She also worked extensively in Liberia and Sierra Leone, both fragile-context engagements at the time.

Trust Funds

Task Team Leader for the African Institute for Remittances (AIR) project, a Bank-executed trust fund funded by a €1.6 million grant from the European Commission (with a further €5 million added following strong performance), delivered in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to help the African Union Commission (AUC) establish the AIR in Kenya. She chaired the AIR project's technical committee and led its Steering Committee secretariat, and separately led a suite of Institutional Development Fund (IDF) grants.

Relationships with Donors & International Organizations

Built partnerships with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union/European Commission, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA); worked with the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, the International Organization for Migration, and United Nations agencies; and engaged with WBG senior management, private foundations, and high-level government officials.

Sectoral Experience

Fiduciary management (procurement and financial management), remittances and diaspora finance, capacity development, and results-based management, applied across country portfolios covering multiple sectors.

Countries Worked In

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Chad, Congo, DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Nepal, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, with post-retirement work extending into the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENA) region.

Academic & Teaching Experience

MBA, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (2001); B.A., Catholic University, Washington, D.C. Post-retirement (since November 2016), short-term consulting with the Office of the Regional Infrastructure Director for the MENA region on digital economy, transport, and energy project quality assurance, and with OPCS's Private Capital Mobilization Facility.