Indian-American Nisha Desai Biswal has been nominated by US President Joe Biden for the top administrative position in the US International Development Finance Commission, the White House announced on Monday.
Nisha Desai Biswal has been nominated for the position of Deputy Chief Executive Officer in the US International Development Finance Commission, an institution that invests in development projects primarily in lower and middle-income countries.
Having served as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia during the Barack Obama administration, Biswal has extensive experience in US foreign policy, private sector and international development programs.
Biswal is currently Senior Vice President for International Strategy and Global Initiatives at the US Chamber of Commerce, overseeing the US India Business Council and the US Bangladesh Business Council.
Biswal, who served in the US State Department from 2013 to 2017, played a major role in improving US-India relations.
Biswal also initiated the C5+1 Dialogue with Central Asia and the US-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue during her tenure as Assistant Secretary. Prior to that, Biswal was Assistant Administrator for Asia at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), directing and supervising USAID programs and operations across South, Central, and Southeast Asia.
She has also spent over a decade on Capitol Hill, working as Staff Director on the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee on Appropriations as well as professional staff on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives.
Biswal serves as the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid and is on both the Board of the National Democratic Institute and the US Institute of Peace International Advisory Council.
She is a member of the United States Institute of Peace Afghanistan Study Group and the Aspen Institute’s India-US Track 2 Dialogue on Climate and Energy. Biswal is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where she studied International Relations and Economics, the White House said.
The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is the US government’s development finance institution (DFI). DFC uses financial tools to promote private investment in the economic development of less-developed countries. It aims to support development impact, US economic interests, and US foreign policy—while taking into account, in its financing operations, the economic and financial soundness and development objectives of the projects for which it provides support. DFC operates under the Secretary of State’s foreign policy guidance.