Writers: Colin Powers, Farah Al Shami, Hassan Sherry, Nabil Abdo, Lena Simet
The Arab Reform Initiative (ARI), the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and their partners are organizing this independent side event on the margin of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG)’s Annual Meetings that are taking place in Washington D.C. in the week of October 21st, 2024. This session provides a comprehensive and forward-looking understanding of the role of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in determining the level and distribution of social spending as well as in shaping social protection systems in the Arab region. In addition to diagnosing the problem, the session offers tangible and feasible alternatives to debt and austerity, ensuing from research produced by the session’s organizers on a number of Arab countries. The proposed alternatives span a wide range of reforms, notably the introduction of self-financed/ contributory schemes, fiscal and public finance reforms, climate finance instruments, and debt restructuring, among others. The session also taps into the political economy of the current global financial architecture and that of the national policies hindering internal resource distribution and fiscal space strategies for universal social protection systems. The panelists’ presentations will be largely complementary, will offer a regional perspective, and will run in an easy-to-follow logical order. The proposed solutions will take into consideration the latest developments and crises in the addressed national contexts.
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