International Financial Institutions and the Future of the MENA Region

Most Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries have regressed back to the 1990s in terms of development, but in a worse form: big macro imbalances, undiversified and anemic economies, plus sound social movements. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is already involved in 4-5 countries, and soon others will follow - Lebanon is in crisis; the next in line are Oman, Bahrain, Tunisia, Iraq, and Jordan. Previous interventions of the IMF and the World Bank, with the Structural Adjustment programs and the Washington consensus, led to the disengagement of the state, to the emergence of crony capitalism, and ultimately to the 2011 uprisings. How will the interventions of the 2020s be different in light of the additional burden of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Join SIPA MENA Forum and Columbia Business School's MENA club in conversation with Dr. Ishac Diwan, Professor of Economics at Paris Sciences et Lettres and École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and Dr. Merza Hussain Hasan, Executive Director and Dean of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group, about the role of international financial institutions in defining the future trajectories of the MENA region.

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Co-hosted with: MENA Forum (OWNER), Economic and Political Development Concentration, Middle East Specialization