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Gloria Davis

OBITUARY FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

Gloria Davis, a retired World Bank official who helped promote grass-roots development projects aimed at helping the poor, died February 21, 2005, of breast cancer at her home in Washington DC, at the age of 62.

Ms. Davis was director of the bank's social development department, which was established to help ensure that projects benefit those in most need of assistance.

She participated in the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, and she helped draft World Bank reports on social development strategy.

Ms. Davis retired in 2000 but continued to work part time. She was a native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a graduate of the University of Minnesota. She received a doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University in 1975.

As a young woman, she traveled to Thailand and India and built an interest in Asia and developing countries.

In the late 1960s, she worked as director of clinics for Planned Parenthood in San Francisco. She taught anthropology at Yale University before joining the World Bank in 1978 to work on development assistance projects in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands.

In 1985, she wrote "Indonesia: Forests, Land and Water," a report that since has been used as a guide for setting environmental protection priorities.

Survivors include her husband, Robert Crooks of Washington DC; her mother, Martha Davis of Minneapolis; a brother, Fred Davis of San Francisco, California; a sister, Susan Davis Cushing of Alexandria, Virginia; and a half brother, Marlet Davis of Minneapolis.

Washington Post

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