Noorulah Delwari

Noorulah Delwari is a former Governor of the central bank of Afghanistan, Da Afghanistan Bank.

Delawari was born in Kabul on November 23, 1942. He studied in the UK and the US and stayed in the US after the invasion of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1979. He served for sixteen years at Lloyds Bank of California, rising to be vice-president and head of its international division.

Delwari returned to Afghanistan in early 2002, to work as senior advisor to the minister of Finance. In 2003 he founded the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency and served as its president until November 2004 when he became head of Da Afghanistan Bank in 2005. Although the House of the People initially rejected his appointment as governor of the central bank in 2006, he stayed on as governor until 2007.

After 2007 Delwari became chief of an Afghan investment support NGO and was reappointed as governor of Da Afghanistan Bank in November 2011, after previous governor Abul Qadir Fitrat in the aftermath following the Kabul Bank scandal. Fitrat claimed he was under threat for investigating fraud at the privately owned Kabul Bank. Although critics said Delwari does not have a good record from his previous stint as director of the bank, the trusted acquaintance of Karzai kept his position until he handed in his resignation on 6 December 2014. Delawari currently serves as Co-Chairman of The Private Sector and Civil Society Enabling Council.