Redesigning Global Finance

January 30, 2025

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

  • Authors
    Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan
    August 15, 2016
    Emerging market economies (EM) as a special class of financial assets have recently been subject to two competing tales. On the one hand, there is evidence of continued financial deepening and further integration within the global financial system, while the offer of higher yields remains hard to find elsewhere. On the other hand, there are frequent bouts of fear of systemic unwinding of positions triggered by investors “exiting” EM that exhibit signs of weak or unclear macroeconomi ...
  • Authors
    Luis de la Calle
    August 1, 2016
    This policy brief argues that Mexico’s future agenda of negotiations should include three main priorities. Firstly, with the help of its NAFTA partners, Mexico should position itself as the export platform of North America to the world. Its structural changes, web of agreements, and strategic location pave the way for this. Secondly, it should insist on being invited to the negotiating table of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). If full participation is not p ...
  • Authors
    Volume 69, Issue 3
    Introduction by Rabah Arezki
    Yaw Nyarko
    July 14, 2016
    OCP Policy Center and its partners, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) at the New York University are pleased to announce the publication of a Special Issue on "Food Price Volatility and its Consequences" in Oxford Economic Papers. The papers selected in this special issue were first presented in February 2014 at an international conference organized in Rabat in collaboration with the IMF's Research Department and  t ...
  • July 13, 2016
    Housing is part of the United Nations 11th Sustainable Development Goal, which is to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. One of the most important targets of such a goal is to “ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing1 and basic services and upgrade slums”. Since 2007, the world has faced rising inequality, insecurity and climate change impact. According to UN Habitat, 54% of the world´s population currently live in cities. By 2050, this n ...
  • Authors
    July 11, 2016
    The Chinese economy is rebalancing while softening its growth pace. China’s spillovers on the global economy have operated through trade, commodity prices, and financial channels. The global reach of the effects from China’s transition have recently been illustrated in risk scenarios simulated for Latin American and the Caribbean economies.  The Chinese economy is rebalancing while softening its growth pace… The weight of the Chinese economy in the global economy rose on its way t ...
  • June 30, 2016
    Latin American economies are facing two historically defining challenges. First, how to cope with the end of the commodities “super-cycle” and the prospect of a long period of low prices for basic natural resources. After all, raw materials production and semi-industrialized goods encompass most of their comparative advantages. Second, and even more exacting, how to adjust to the present disruptive transition from an old to a new global economic and social model. The 20th century in ...
  • Authors
    June 27, 2016
    The referendum in favor of the exit of Britain from the European Union (“Brexit”) marks a sad day for Britain and for Europe. It represents a victory of nationalism over the liberal economic order, in the country that inspired the ideas that lie at its foundations. The referendum probably signals the end of an experiment widely supported by the young, the elites and most economists, but which has failed in the eyes of the majority of British people. For Britain, the economic risks a ...