The newly appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Sierra Leone, Dr Ibrahim L Stevens will face parliament this Thursday, 23rd November, 2023 for final approval after his appointment by President Rtd. Brig. Julius Maada Bio.

He was last week interviewed by the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on appointments where questions and concerns regarding his work, academic and social life was asked by Committee members.

Before the latest appointment, Dr Ibrahim L Stevens was the acting Governor of the Central Bank of Sierra Leone, replacing the substantive Governor, Dr Kelfala Kallon who was on leave. Dr Ibrahim L. Stevens performed excellently in that capacity which necessitated his official appointment by the president, replacing the former Bank Governor.

Prior to his appointment, Dr Ibrahim L Stevens served as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank in 2014. He was also reappointed for another five-year term as Deputy Governor in 2019 and was in charge of Monetary Stability. He has also made immense contribution in Policy Development at the Bank.

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He also boasts of a distinguished background as a Senior Economist at the Bank of England, and he holds a PhD in Financial Economics from Durham University.

Dr Ibrahim L Stevens’ appointment as Governor therefore signals a promising future for the nation’s financial sector.

Also, Dr. Stevens’ academic journey has been nothing short of excellence, with notable achievements such as an Msc in Business Finance from Brunel University and a Bsc in Economics from the University of Sierra Leone. Prior to his appointment at the Bank of Sierra Leone, he was the Country Programme Director at the Inter- national Growth Centre (IGC), London School of Economics.

Before joining the IGC, he was Macroeconomic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in Rwanda and Head of Project for the German International Cooperation (GIZ-funded project) on Macroeconomic Ad-vice to Rwanda. The project also covered the Central Bank of Africa, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Central Bank of Colombia. In 2008-2009 he was seconded to the Bank of Sierra -Leone as Senior Policy Adviser – and Director of Research. Dr. Steven’s research interests are in financial stability, monetary analysis and applied financial econometrics.

His work has been published in several international academic journals including the Economic Journal, International Journal of Central Banking, and the Journal of Financial Stability, among others. He has at- tended numerous international conferences and presented pa- person policy-relevant research in financial economics and central banking.

Dr Stevens was also a visiting Fellow at Durham University (20042008) and a visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London (2009 2012), where he taught advanced Macroeconomics.

Before moving to Rwanda, he was a Senior Economist at the Bank of England and had worked for the Bank for ten years. At the Bank, he worked on Financial Stability, Monetary Analysis and was a Senior Adviser at the Centre for Central Banking Studies (CCBS).

In Monetary Analysis, he was part of the team that conducted the initial assessment of the effective- ness of Quantitative Easing (QE), an unconventional monetary policy adopted by the Bank of England in 2009. That work also involved research on the theoretical and empirical framework for QE.

At the CCBS, Dr Ibrahim Stevens’ work was mainly to provide policy advice, capacity building and pro- mote collaboration with other central banks. In this role, he had the opportunity to visit over 40 (forty) central banks/countries for ex- tended policy collaboration and research. Dr Stevens was a visitor at the Reserve Bank of South.