Swarnim Wagle is the Minister of Finance of Nepal. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) from Tanahun-1 constituency for a second consecutive term in March 2026. He is also Vice-Chair of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which secured Nepal’s biggest parliamentary victory in history in the latest general elections.
Dr. Wagle is the former Chief Economic Advisor at the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBAP) in New York, covering 36 countries. He has been an international development professional for more than 25 years, including as Senior Economist at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Between 2014 and 2018, he served the National Planning Commission (NPC) in the Government of Nepal for three intermittent years, first as Member and then as Vice-Chair. In the aftermath of the devastating Nepal earthquake of 2015, he co-led the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) and helped garner a pledge of US$4 billion for reconstruction.
Between 2019 and 2026, Dr. Wagle steered a South Asian policy think-tank, the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), of which he is Chairman Emeritus. He is a past senator of Kathmandu University; an eminent member of the World Bank’s South Asia Regional Champions; and consultant at institutions like the Asian Development Bank (Manila) and the International Trade Center (Geneva). Widely published, he co-edited The Great Upheaval (Cambridge University Press, 2022); co-authored the global Human Development Report (2013) The Rise of the South; and was South Asia editor of Harvard Asia Quarterly (2000).
Swarnim Wagle holds a doctorate in economics from the Australian National University, master’s in international development (MPA/ID) from Harvard University, and BSc (Econ) from the London School of Economics. He was born in Gorkha in 1974.
(Updated: March 2026)
