Assessing Inclusive Growth in the Middle East and North Africa

August 18, 2023

In this interview, Taline Koranchelian, the Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Middle East and Central Asia Department, shares her insights on the region's progress in achieving inclusive growth over the past decade. She discusses successful approaches, challenges encountered, and highlights the key remaining gaps that need to be adressed.

Speakers
Taline Koranchelian
Deputy Director in the Middle East and Central Asia Department, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Taline Koranchelian is the Deputy Director in the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she oversees the regional work of the department as well as the IMF’s work in Algeria, Djibouti, Iraq, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen.Prior to her appointment as Deputy Director in the Middle East and Central Asia Department, Koranchelian was Director of the IMF’s Middle East Regional Technical Assistance Center since June 2016. Between 2012 and 2016, Koranchelian was Assistant Director of the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review, leading the IMF surveillance policy and reviewing the work of the IMF for around 30 countries across all regions.Throughout her more than 15 years of experience at the IMF, Koranchelian has held various posi ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • June 1, 2026
    Cette interview met en lumière le rôle central du secteur textile et de l’habillement dans l’économie marocaine, tant en matière d’emploi que d’exportations. Notre économiste, Mr. Fahd Azeroual revient sur son évolution historique, ses principaux défis, notamment la dépendance aux impor...
  • Authors
    May 22, 2026
    This paper, the fourth in a research series on services-led growth in the Global South, examines Egypt’s potential for growth and economic transformation through the integration of services into Global Value Chains (GVCs). It employs a new taxonomy that classifies services into Knowledge Services (KS), Enabling Services (ES), and Local Services (LS) and applies OECD 2025 Trade in Value-Added (TiVA), Trade in Employment (TiM), and input-output databases to benchmark Egypt against Mor ...
  • Authors
    May 15, 2026
    This paper is the third in a series of country and comparative studies that together comprise a research program on services as drivers of economic growth and structural transformation in the Global South. The paper analyzes the pattern of Tunisia's services-led economic growth from 2012- 2022 using a specialized three-category framework: knowledge services (KS), enabling services (ES), and local services (LS). Using data from the OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA), Trade in Employmen ...
  • Authors
    Liel Maghen
    May 11, 2026
    This Paper was originally published on mitvim.org.il This paper argues that the reconstruction of Gaza will depend not only on the amount of funding mobilized, but on how financing is structured, governed, and anchored within a broader politi`cal context. In a setting shaped by movement restrictions and weak institutions, financial design is not neutral but shapes priorities, distributes power, and determines what can be implemented on the ground. The paper examines the key cha ...
  • Authors
    April 30, 2026
    This paper is the second in a series examining services-led development and global value chain (GVC) integration in the Global South. It applies a three-category analytical framework covering knowledge services (ICT and professional business services), enabling services (transport, logistics, and finance), and local services (retail, hospitality, health, and personal services), to OECD Trade in Value Added indicators. The paper thus  ...
  • Authors
    April 20, 2026
    This paper was published as a book chapter in “The Economic Potential of Islamic Countries, Part B: Sustainability, Governance, Energy and Digital Transformation,” released by Emerald Publishing. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant deficiencies within social protection systems worldwide, especially in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries. This underscores the urgent need to fortify these social protection schemes to ensure resilience in the face of crises (Sa ...
  • Authors
    April 8, 2026
    This report was originally published on the website of the Middle East Institute ( mei.edu) The following study discusses the role of Lebanon’s gold reserves in the establishment of a currency board and evaluates four policy options: a true currency board, constrained central bank reform, full dollarization, and a unified managed float. Gold reserves are relevant under all four. The conclusion is consistent across them: no monetary framework, however carefully designed and howe ...
  • Authors
    April 1, 2026
    We are now in the fifth week since the U.S. airstrike that killed top leaders of the Iranian regime, initiating a war involving the United States and Israel against the country. More than a month of mutual bombardments between Iran and Israel has ensued, extending to other Persian Gulf nations, U.S. military installations—and even Cyprus. From a global perspective, the impact has stemmed primarily from disruptions to regional production of goods and the blockade of the Strait of Hor ...
  • Authors
    March 13, 2026
    While acknowledging the centrality of security tensions and potential conflict in the Gulf, this essay intentionally sets aside a detailed treatment of military and hard-power dynamics, concentrating instead on the geoeconomic logics of capital, infrastructure, energy, and connectivity, through which Gulf states now articulate power in a fragmented world order.It examines the emergence of a new tripartite or three-pillar power configuration in the Gulf, arguing that Saudi Arabi ...
  • Authors
    March 12, 2026
    Historically, manufacturing has served as the primary pathway to economic development, offering strong scale economies, learning-by-doing effects, and the capacity to generate the foreign exchange necessary to import capital goods and technology. However, advances in robotization and artificial intelligence (AI) are fundamentally undermining manufacturing’s traditional role, making it increasingly skill- and capital-intensive while limiting its ability to absorb labor. Thi ...