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

  • To solve extreme poverty, give people money
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    March 4, 2024
    This blog was originally published on huawei.com   What impact do you think ICT and connectivity can have in fighting global poverty? At the World Bank we had a very enthusiastic and optimistic view on the potential impact of technology and ICT. Brazil had a cash transfer program for poorer families where households received money directly from the government, regardless of whether they had bank accounts. The money was not distributed by hand but done electronically: the governme ...
  • Biden’s action: a political economy perspective
    By Otaviano Canuto, Dominique Bocquet, Paul Isbell
    March 01, 2024
    This podcast tackles the intricacies of Biden’s presidency from a political economy standpoint. Our guests initially discuss the degree to which it can be argued that US democracy has rec ...
  • Download PDF
    The Middle-Income Trap and Resource-Based Growth: the Case of Brazil
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    Hinh T. Dinh
    Karim El Aynaoui
    March 1, 2024
    This paper examines Brazil's economic growth patterns over the last three decades and identifies a missed opportunity for the country to attain high-income status by the mid-2010s. Instead, Brazil has suffered from low productivity growth, and has made little progress in transforming its production and export structures in favor of higher value-added activities. This premature de-industrialization makes it challenging for Brazil to transition from its long- standing upper-middle-inc ...
  • Download PDF
    How Can the Global South Navigate Geopolitical Rivalry and Geoeconomic Fragmentation?
    Authors
    Hung Q. Tran
    February 23, 2024
    Heightened geopolitical rivalry has greatly complicated the challenges facing the Global South. Countries identifying with the Global South now have to deal with the long-standing problem of promoting changes in the current international political and economic system to better serve their development needs, while navigating the geopolitically driven fragmentation of trade and investment flows. Moreover, the strategic approaches that could be adopted to deal with those challenges are ...
  • La Banque mondiale au Maroc : apprendre et s'adapter pour avoir un impact
    February 20, 2024
    Le Policy Center for the New South et le Groupe d'évaluation indépendante (IEG) de la Banque mondiale organisent un évènement sous le thème «La Banque mondiale au Maroc : apprendre et s'adapter pour avoir un impact ». L'événement examine les conclusions d'une évaluation récente du sou...
  • Download PDF
    Emerging Markets and Developing Economies in the Global Financial Safety Net
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    Amshika Amar
    February 16, 2024
    When countries face external financial shocks, they must rely on financial buffers to counter such shocks. The global financial safety net is the set of institutions and arrangements that provide lines of defense for economies against such shocks. From any individual country standpoint, there are three lines of defense in their external financial safety nets: international reserves, pooled resources (swap lines and plurilateral financing arrangements), and the International Monetar ...
  • Download PDF
    Trade and the Persistence of the MENA ‘Gender Equality Paradox’
    Authors
    Mina Baliamoune
    February 14, 2024
    Greater female participation in the labor market and in international trade have been recognized as important drivers for economic growth and essential targets in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, achieving both targets simultaneously will be difficult, if not impossible, in most Middle East and North African (MENA) countries without additional policies to eliminate the remarkably high levels of gender inequality in the labor market. I ...
  • Download PDF
    Structures et dynamiques productives au Maroc : un nouveau regard par la théorie des réseaux
    Authors
    Ali Elguellab
    Elhadj Ezzahid
    February 12, 2024
    Dans ce rapport, nous proposons d’utiliser une nouvelle approche pour analyser les structures productives au Maroc. Nous appliquons les outils de la théorie des réseaux aux tableaux des échanges inter-industriels de l'économie marocaine. Nos résultats montrent que le réseau national de production présente des caractéristiques intuitives dans le sens qu’elles sont liées aux processus de production. La structure de ce réseau peut être représentée sous la forme d'un papillon, avec les ...