Robert W. Meins is a Remittances Specialist at International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) headquarters in Rome. Mr. Meins has been an integral part of IFAD's Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) since his work as a Remittances Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). After representing the IDB as a donor on the FFR's Steering Committee for two years, Mr. Meins moved to IFAD in June of 2009.

In  charge of the  development of the FFR's new projects in Asia, the monitoring of global remittance flows and the FFR’s research program, Mr. Meins has testified before the OAS, speaks regularly at think-tanks and academic institutions, and has been widely quoted in the international press.

As a Remittances Specialist at the IDB, Mr. Meins was responsible for broad range of activities including quantification and analysis of remittance flows to Latin America and the Caribbean, dissemination, and project development. He led a technical cooperation with the African Development Bank focused on sharing MIF experiences with the AfDB and was responsible for the development of line of activity on improving remittance services through new technologies.

Prior to joining IFAD and the IDB, Mr. Meins began his focus on the role of the private sector in enhancing the development impact of remittances at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington, and was founder and chairman of the Foundation for International Migration and Development (FIMD) in the Netherlands.

Mr. Meins holds a Dutch “Doctoraal” degree in International Relations from the University of Groningen with a specialization in International Political Economics and specifically on remittances, anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).