In this paper, we describe a surprising link between the theory of the GoldmanTuraev Lie bialgebra on surfaces of genus zero and the Kashiwara-Vergne (KV) problem in Lie theory. Let Σ be an oriented 2-dimensional manifold with non-empty boundary and K a field of characteristic zero. The Goldman-Turaev Lie bialgebra is defined by the Goldman bracket {−, −} and Turaev cobracket δ on the K-span of homotopy classes of free loops on Σ.Applying an expansion θ : Kπ → K x 1 , . . . , x n yields an algebraic description of the operations {−, −} and δ in terms of non-commutative variables x 1 , . . . , x n . If Σ is a surface of genus g = 0 the lowest degree parts {−, −} −1 and δ −1 are canonically defined (and independent of θ). They define a Lie bialgebra structure on the space of cyclic words which was introduced and studied by Schedler [31]. It was conjectured by the second and the third authors that one can define an expansion θ such that {−, −} = {−, −} −1 and δ = δ −1 . The main result of this paper states that for surfaces of genus zero constructing such an expansion is essentially equivalent to the KV problem. In [24], Massuyeau constructed such expansions using the Kontsevich integral.In order to prove this result, we show that the Turaev cobracket δ can be constructed in terms of the double bracket (upgrading the Goldman bracket) and the non-commutative divergence cocycle which plays the central role in the KV theory. Among other things, this observation gives a new topological interpretation of the KV problem and allows to extend it to surfaces with arbitrary number of boundary components (and of arbitrary genus, see [2]).