Back

Redesigning Global Finance

January 30, 2025
Related topics: 
Economy

In this episode of Redesigning Global Finance, we explore the evolving landscape of global financial governance, focusing on how institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and regional development banks are adapting to new economic realities and global crises. The episode examines how financial systems must evolve to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and highlights the transformative role of digital technologies such as cryptocurrencies, blockchain, AI, and fintech in reshaping financial infrastructure and promoting financial inclusion. At the same time, it addresses the regulatory, security, and governance challenges these innovations present. The discussion centers on the urgent reforms needed to ensure financial resilience, aligning capital flows with sustainable development in emerging markets, and the changing role of traditional financial institutions in the face of rising digital finance.

Speakers
Ahmed Ouhnini
Economist, Policy Center for the New South
Ahmed Ouhnini is an Economist at the Policy Center for the New South. His research area covers agricultural economics, human and social development. Previously, he has worked as a researcher at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and has also a record of working in consulting services in Morocco. Ahmed holds an engineering Diploma in Agriculture and Rural Development from the National School of Agriculture of Meknes and a Master’s Degree in Law, Economics and Management from the Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne Institute of Development. ...
Ferid Belhaj
Senior Fellow
Ferid Belhaj took up the position of World Bank Vice President for Middle East and North Africa on July 1, 2018. Prior to this, he served as the Chief of Staff of the President of the World Bank Group for 15 months. From 2012 to 2017, Mr. Belhaj was World Bank Director for the Middle East, in charge of work programs in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran, based in Beirut, Lebanon. In this capacity, he led the Bank’s engagement on the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on the region, including the creation of new financing instruments to help countries hosting forcibly displaced people; the ramping up of the Bank drive towards the reconstruction and recovery of Iraq during and after the ISIS invasion and the scaling up of the Bank's commitments to Lebanon and Jordan. Befo ...
Masood Ahmed
President of the Center for Global Development
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Plenary VII: Financing Infrastructures: Time for a Big Push in Africa
    December 12, 2017
    Infrastructure development is a key factor for growth and an essential catalyst for sustainable and socially inclusive development. The emergence of a large middle-class on the African continent is driving the demand for socio-economic infrastructure including access to water and sanita...
  • Download PDF
    Agricultural Trade and Food Security
    Authors
    Will Martin
    December 5, 2017
    The second United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG2) includes the goal to: “End hunger and achieve food security and improved nutrition” by 2030. While such an ambitious goal will clearly involve a wide range of policies and actors, this policy brief focuses on the role of trade policies in affecting food and nutrition security. Extensive and frequently contentious, debate swirls about whether trade in agricultural products is beneficial or detrimental for food security, pa ...
  • Download PDF
    The Protectionist’s Progress: Year 1
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    December 5, 2017
    President Trump’s actions on trade have not quite matched his rhetoric, but the worst may be to come. Though the political opposition to his protectionism is formidable, so are his conviction and determination and he possesses a wide array of instruments to pursue his goals. The trade doctrine he has espoused makes for trade policy instability both at home and abroad. It may lead to a large deterioration in the operating environment of international business. America’s tradedependen ...
  • Download PDF
    Jobs in the Middle East North Africa, and the Moroccan case
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    November 30, 2017
    The jobs markets across the Middle East North Africa region vary greatly, with some oil-rich countries importers of labor while others, including Morocco, are the source of emigrants. Morocco exhibits structural underemployment despite having grown quite rapidly. The reasons for Morocco’s job-poor growth run deep. Policies can mitigate the problem but are unlikely to solve it in the foreseeable future. ...
  • Download PDF
    الوظائف في الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا، ودراسة الحالة المغربية
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    November 30, 2017
    إن أسواق العمل في منطقة الشرق األوسط وشمال إفريقيا تتباين فيما بينها بشكل كبير، فهناك بعض الدول النفطية اليت تقوم باستيراد العمالة فيما تقوم بلدان أخرى، ومن ضمنها المغرب، بتوفير اليد العاملة والكفاءات المهاجرة. هذا وتظهر على المغرب معالم وجود بطالة مقنعة على المستوى الهيكلي بالرغم من وتيرة النمو السريعة اليت سارت عليها البالد. وهناك عدد من األسباب المتشعبة اليت تقف وراء هذا النمو العاجز عن خلق فرص عمل ِّ ها في َّ بعة قد تتمكن من التخفيف من حدة اإلشكالية ولكن دون أن تنجح في حل مكتملة ...
  • Jobs, Industrialization, and Globalization
    Authors
    Hinh T. Dinh
    November 28, 2017
    After many decades of expansion, incomes and standards of living have never been better in many parts of the world. Yet, global trade and the prospects of growth still seem uncertain, and protectionism seems to be on the rise. In developed countries, there is anxiety over the loss of the manufacturing jobs that once absorbed a large share of the labor force and created a middle class that formed the core of democracy. Most middle-income countries have not yet been able to make the t ...
  • Download PDF
    Overlapping Globalizations
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    November 27, 2017
    Current technological developments in manufacturing are likely to lead to a partial reversal of the wave of fragmentation and global value chains that was at the core of the rise of North-South trade from 1990 onwards. At the same time, China – the main hub of the global-growth-cum-structural-change of that period - may attempt to extend the previous wave through its “One Belt, One Road” initiative. ...