Sebnem Sahin is the Chief Economist for the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (RBEC), based in Istanbul. She brings 20 years of experience with international institutions including UNDP, the World Bank, OECD, IFPRI, CEPII, and academia. She specializes in economic modelling to assess development challenges tailored to specific countries and regions. In her current role, she provides thought leadership on inclusive growth, sustainable finance, regional cooperation, and trade integration across the region.
Her work has spanned Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Cyprus, North Macedonia, and Afghanistan, as well as the Western Balkans and the Middle East. She has contributed to crisis response and long-term development strategies in the context of major global disruptions, including climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
She holds a PhD and a Master’s in Economics from Panthéon-Sorbonne and École Centrale Paris, and a BA in Economics from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. She is a research fellow for GTAP 2024-27.