Spring Meetings Seminars
The Political Economy of Transition in the
Middle East
Thursday, April 18, 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
IMF HQ2, Conference Hall 1
Top Left to Right: Abdallah Shehata; Nemat Shafik; Michele Dunne
Bottom Left to Right: Ghassan Salame; Audience Member; Ishac Diwan
Photos: Cliff Owen
Watch a webcast 
of the seminar
Panelists
Nemat Shafik
Deputy Managing Director, IMF
Ishac Diwan
Director for Africa and the Middle East, Center for International Development, Harvard
Michele Dunne
Director, Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East
Ghassan Salamé
Dean of PSIA, professor at Sciences-Po and Columbia University
Abdallah Shehata
Economic Adviser to the Finance Minister, Egypt
Moderator:
Pierre Ghanem
Al-Arabiya
Photos from the Event
Overview
The complex political and social transformations in the Arab countries in transition—Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen—continue amid economic challenges. Policymakers will need to maintain macroeconomic stability and respond to the growing impatience among restless populations for quick improvements in their livelihood at the same time as managing political transitions, including contentious elections. Can economic reform take place in the middle of political transition? What is needed?
Questions this session will address:
- If there is consensus about reform priorities, what is holding governments back from initiating those reforms?
- What can be done to overcome obstacles to reform?
- Do reforms need to be sequenced? If so, how?
- How will relationships between the new governments and various economic stakeholders need to change?
- How will engagement with international actors be different?
- What are some examples of success in implementing reform during political transition?
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