Iryna Bilotserkivska

’09 MAIR

Operations Analyst

World Bank

Iryna Bilotserkivska is an Operations Analyst with the World Bank. She received an MAIR in 2009 from the Maxwell School. Originally from Odessa, Ukraine, Iryna currently lives in Washington D.C.

The World Bank is an organization that serves as a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. It provides low-interest loans, interest-free credits, and grants, supporting a wide array of investments in such areas as education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. In addition, the World Bank is supporting developing countries through policy advice, research and analysis, and technical assistance. Its analytical work often underpins World Bank financing and helps inform developing countries’ own investments.

“I work on the Doing Business annual report which provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 189 economies. The report looks at domestic small- and medium-size companies and measures the regulations applying to them through their life cycle. Doing Business encourages countries to compete towards more efficient regulation; offers measurable benchmarks for reform; and serves as a resource for academics, journalists, private sector researchers and others interested in the business climate of each country,” Iryna says. “I work on the Trading Across Borders indicator of the Doing Business report, which involves gathering and analyzing data on international trade in terms of regulatory burden on small and medium enterprises involved in trade. I actively engage private sector companies to participate in the research as well as lead communications with the governments all over the world.”

Iryna’s regional concentration is on countries in Europe and Central Asia, Middle East, Caribbean and East Asia Pacific islands. “Some of my most notable accomplishments include increasing the number of participants in the research – hence, increasing its quality, leading a successful dialogue with high level government officials, contributing to the analysis of trade facilitation through co-authoring a case study on single windows and representing the report to the media,” she says.

While at Maxwell, Iryna received the Hursky fellowship. “There are not enough words to thank to the founders of the fellowship that each year gives an opportunity to a student from Ukraine to study in Syracuse,” Iryna says. “My Maxwell experience has enhanced my career and enriched me with invaluable sets of knowledge and skills in the area of international relations. I appreciate that the program allowed me to benefit not only from theoretical courses but also to apply them in practice through internships I did during my studies.”

Iryna explains that while at Maxwell, one of her favorite classes was on conflict resolution, which helped her to understand the psychology of conflicts and approaches to their resolution, a lesson that became useful not just professionally but also in everyday life. “Another class that helped me to land one of my first jobs after graduation was on program management and results-based frameworks – a theme particularly topical in both international and non-governmental organizations today,” she says.