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Embarking on a Path of Renewal – MENA Commission on Stabilization and Growth: Insights into More Hopeful Directions

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9:30 am May 2023
Add to Calendar 2023-05-04 09:30:00 2025-05-02 16:31:16 Embarking on a Path of Renewal – MENA Commission on Stabilization and Growth: Insights into More Hopeful Directions Description Location Policy Center Policy Center Africa/Casablanca public

Our Senior Fellow Hafez Ghanem takes part of the Economic Research Forum annual conference and shares his insights in a high level panel entitled “Embarking on a Path of Renewal – MENA Commission on Stabilization and Growth –Insights into More Hopeful Directions”.

While some reduction in government expenditure is unavoidable, much of the political capital invested in adjusting to the current macro shocks and to high indebtedness should go towards improving growth prospects. Several dimensions of the challenge can be highlighted:

- Public expenditure should be reoriented to social protection and pro-growth spending. To what extent can debt restructuring help achieve these goals? Can countries count on more cooperation between the IMF and the World Bank in shaping longer term growth-focused adjustment programs?

- How to adapt the growth agenda to new global circumstances? Global conditions are not favorable. But there are new possibilities. Export-led growth can get boosted by the delocalization of value chains close to the GCC and Europe. Digitalization can improve labor productivity. Green growth needs to focus on adaptation but can also develop comparative advantage in green-energy intensive products.

- There seems to be enormous new opportunities to expand regional cooperation that can be mobilized in support of reformist national programs on climate adaptation, technology, food security, energy.

- Political leaders need to lead the reform effort. They need to mobilize winners and compensate losers. Improved trust in institutions and confidence about the future can support collective action and generate a virtuous process of progress on all fronts.

 

In light of these findings, this session will draw the outlines of a research agenda that can take a deep dive to ultimately generate knowledge that can enlighten the policy debate with evidence and rigorous analysis.

 

Watch the full panel on:

Speakers
Hafez Ghanem
Senior Fellow
Hafez Ghanem – who holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Davis – is Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a development expert with a large number of academic publications; and more than forty-year experience in policy analysis, project formulation and supervision, and management of multinational institutions.  He has worked in over 40 countries in Africa, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and South East Asia.   Between 2015 and 2022 he was Vice President of the World Bank, initially responsible for the Middle East and North Africa, then for Sub-Saharan Africa and then East and Southern Africa.     In this latter capacity he was responsible for developing and implementing the World Bank’s strategy in the region, inc ...