Finn Tarp (born 1951) is a Danish professor of development economics at the University of Copenhagen (where he completed his MSc and PhD) and former director of UNU-WIDER (2009-2018), Helsinki, Finland.

His field experience covers more than two decades of in-country work in 35 countries across Africa and the developing world more generally, including longer-term assignments in Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Vietnam.

[1] Professor Tarp is a leading international expert on issues of development strategy and foreign aid, with an interest in poverty, income distribution and growth, micro- and macroeconomic policy and modeling, agricultural sector policy and planning, household and enterprise development, and economic adjustment and reform.

They include the European Union Development Network (EUDN) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC).

From 2013 - 2016 he also served as a member of the World Bank Chief Economist’s 15 member ‘Council of Eminent Persons’ advising the Chief Economist and he has been awarded the Vietnamese Government Medals of Honour for ‘Support to the Planning and Investment System’ and the ‘Cause of Science and Technology’ as well as a Knighthood, Order of the Dannebrog,[5] by Her Majesty the Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.