Mr. Hamar Jawo is a Senior Bank Examiner at the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) As an Islamic Finance expert. He was a co-founder and CEO of Interest free Zone (a Consultancy Firm specialized in Islamic Microfinance, Islamic Banking and Finance, Financial inclusion, Social financing and Waqf). He has over 8 years of experience in the Islamic banking and Finance industry. He is a seasoned academist, Senior lecturer and Assistant HOD at the International Open University former Islamic Online University (IOU) in Islamic Banking and Finance department. In 2019, after the issuance of a directive by the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) allowing all Ethiopian banks to offer Interest Free banking Products and Services, he was appointed as Director of East Africa’s Interest Free Banking and Finance Institute – the IBFI (Ethiopia).

Mr. Jawo holds MBA in Islamic Finance from the prestigious Centre D’Etudes Superieures en Gestion – CESAG in Dakar Senegal, and BSc. in Economics and Management from UTG. He joined the CBG to help build the Islamic Finance Unit which is tasked for regulating all Islamic Financial Institutions (Islamic banks, Takaful & Islamic Microfinance) in the Gambia. Prior to joining the CBG, he served as assistant Head of treasury at AGIB Ltd where he was responsible for structuring all Shariah compliant Islamic Treasury and Liquidity Management Instruments.

Mr. Jawo conducted several trainings and consultancies locally and internationally which include COMSEC capacity building on Islamic Finance for the Central Banks of The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria as lead facilitator, he was also master trainer during the Islamic Finance Seminar organized by the Management Development Institute. He was contracted to deliver a course by the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) on Interest Free Banking in 2016. Among his current engagements is with The Light of UMMAH in Nigeria where he is training Nigerian Business Entrepreneurs, Banks, Islamic Microfinance and SMEs on the fundamentals of Islamic Microfinance and Retail Banking. In November 2019, Mr. Jawo was contracted to train Dashen Bank staff (Ethiopia) on Fundaments and Ethics of Interest Free Banking and Finance and Interest free Pool Management and Profit and Loss distribution mechanisms. He has an excellent linguistic background in both English and French languages.