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

  • Download PDF
    La vanille malgache : entre valorisation des avantages comparatifs et nécessaire diversification économique
    Authors
    Yves Jégourel
    February 17, 2021
    La vanille est un produit d’exportation phare de Madagascar qui dispose, pour cette matière première unique, d’un quasi-monopole mondial. Si les recettes d’exportation qui en découlent sont essentielles pour l’île Rouge, leur variabilité, conjuguée à celle d’autres produits, tels que le nickel, n’est pas sans poser d’importants problèmes macroéconomiques en raison de la faible diversification de sa balance commerciale. Conséquence de la chute des cours depuis les sommets atteints en ...
  • Les Mardis du PCNS 16/02/2021 : قانون الشغل والحماية الاجتماعية على ضوء أزمة كورونا
    February 16, 2021
    خصص مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد حلقته الاسبوعية لحديث الثلاثاء لمناقشة قانون الشغل والحماية الاجتماعية في ظل أزمة كوفيد 19 رفقة محمد طارق، أستاذ القانون الاجتماعي بجامعة الحسن الثاني بالدار البيضاء. في هذه الحلقة سيتم تحليل وضع المغرب فيما يتعلق بالمجال الحماية الاجتماعي خاصة خلا...
  • Download PDF
    African Cities in Times of COVID-19: Resilience against all Odds
    Authors
    Paola Maniga
    Yassine Moustanjidi
    February 15, 2021
    The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed new vulnerabilities in social, infrastructure, and governance systems. In the first months of the pandemic, there was a genuine concern about the capacity of the Global South to contain the spread of the virus. African cities were particularly vulnerable, with some experts1, including the head of WHO2, predicting a catastrophe for the continent. Despite the structural and chronic challenges that African cities face, including informality, poverty, a ...
  • Download PDF
    Africa’s Development Issues After Covid-19
    Authors
    Hinh T. Dinh
    February 12, 2021
    This paper provides a preliminary assessment of COVID-19’s impact on Africa, focusing on the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, based on information available as of October 2020. We first identify the two key long-term issues of the SSA countries before the crisis: resource dependency and slow productivity growth. COVID-19 has hit SSA countries hard, causing human and economic destruction and wiping out economic progress from the last decade. Instead of growing at 2.9% in 2020, as ...
  • Central Banks and Inequality
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    Otaviano Canuto
    February 11, 2021
    While the economic recovery around the world remains uneven, fragile, and unbalanced across sectors, financial markets are generally doing very well, thanks! In the United States, only half of the unemployment caused by the pandemic last year has been reversed, while stock markets continued to boom. Of course, this largely reflected the extraordinary support given by monetary authorities since March last year. As in the period after the 2007-08 global financial crisis, voices have ...
  • Download PDF
    The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA): Legal Overview
    Authors
    Abdessalam Saad Jaldi
    Abdessalam Saad Jaldi
    February 5, 2021
    Regional integration in Africa is seen as a priority by many of the continent’s policymakers and economic stakeholders. With all Africa now signed up to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), the challenge now is to implement a continental market for goods and services and establish the foundations of a continental customs union. Many on the continent see the AfCFTA as an investment, economic-diversification, and job-creation blueprint that will shape the future of A ...
  • Cooperation Critical to Reducing Divergent Paths to Recovery in Middle East and Central Asia
    Authors
    Jihad Azour
    February 5, 2021
    This article was originally published on IMF blog.  The road to recovery for the Middle East and Central Asia region will hinge on containment measures, access to and distribution of vaccines, the scope of policies to support growth, and measures to mitigate economic scarring from the pandemic. The virus’s second wave, which began in September, hurt many countries in the region, where infection and death rates far surpassed those seen during the first wave . Most countries resumed ...