The Middle East region has developed into an important emerging practice for Centennial Group. Many countries of the Middle East are (managing or are undergoing) fundamental changes in the face of significant demographic, social and economic challenges.

Our Middle East practice offered strategic advisory services to the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group, the region’s premier regional development finance institution as well as to the National Development Fund (NDF) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a newly created, large public development fund.

Centennial work in support of IsDB Group evaluated opportunities to (derive/obtain) greater impact from its specialized agencies working together in synergy to increase the Group’s efficiency, effectiveness and impact. Centennial also assisted IsDB in structuring the case for the forthcoming general capital increase. In both of these engagements Centennial fielded a team of experts with extensive operational experience in multilateral governance, finance, management, and evaluation.
From 2019 Centennial Group has helped NDF formulate its long term strategy to become, along with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) one of the enablers of the transformation of the Saudi economy. The strategy, which was endorsed by the NDF Board of Directors in January 2020, lays out a path for NDF to oversee Funds under its supervision to increase the overall effectiveness and impact, to consolidate fund operations for greater synergy, and to evolve into the first DFI of the Kingdom.

With the endorsement of the strategy by authorities, Centennial is currently helping NDF implement the long-term strategy. The detailed implementation plan calls for the delivery of numerous reports prepared by some 40 global experts with over 500 years of experience in international development. Over the two years of implementation, experts will analyze, offer global experience, propose options, and assist in roll-out in diverse specialized fields (such as finance, infrastructure, SMEs, legal, macroeconomics, impact measurement, shared services, communications, and organizational design and staffing).

Our Team

Meet the principal(s) that lead our Middle East assignments: