Director, Middle East and Central Asia department, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
This individual is a guest contributor. MEI is not able to assist with contact requests.
Jihad Azour is the director of the Middle East and Central Asia department at the IMF, where he oversees the Fund’s work in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Caucasus. Azour served as Lebanon’s finance minister from 2005-08, during which time he coordinated the implementation of important reforms, including modernizing the country’s tax and customs systems. Before and since his time as finance minister, he held a wide range of positions in the private sector, including at McKinsey and Booz and Co. where he was vice president and senior executive advisor. Prior to joining the IMF in March 2017, he was a managing partner at investment firm Inventis Partners. Azour has published several books and articles on economic and financial issues and taught extensively.
Building Forward Better in the Middle East and North Africa: A Medium-Term Perspective
The strong and coordinated policy actions to save lives and support the recovery in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will hopefully put the health crisis behind us in a few years. Meanwhile, this crisis has posed major challenges to the region’s economies that have embarked on a long and divergent path to recovery and highlighted the limitations of the current growth model. But it also provides a rare opportunity in the quest to move to a new development model to enhance growth and accelerate the transition toward a more sustainable and inclusive path.
Thinking MENA Futures: The Next Five Years and Beyond
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), for a variety of reasons, are unrivaled in their need for bold, creative thinking about their future. But that is precisely why creative thinking about the future of the region — why strategic foresight — is essential. Produced in conjunction with MEI’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, Thinking MENA Futures aims to map out some of the possible futures for the region, as envisioned by thoughtful innovators working today to realize them.
Economic Innovation, Inclusion, and Resilience: A Key to Growth
The below transcript is from the fourth panel of MEI’s 72nd Annual Conference, held on November 8, 2018 at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington, D.C.
