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Fragility in Middle Income Countries: New Ideas for Unique Challenges
October 8, 2015Lima, Peru
Join us on October 8, 2015 for a live discussion with ministers from Jordan & Iraq and civil society leaders from Lebanon, Tunisia, Libya and Palestine.

Over 15 million people in the Middle East and North Africa region have become displaced over the past few years, with a growing presence in middle income countries (MIC). This influx is one manifestation of fragility in the region. Host countries are providing a public good to the world by delivering services to the refugee population.

The meeting will be an opportunity for exchanging ideas between Middle Income Countries with experiences of fragility.

Participants will discuss possible solutions to the challenges posed by fragility in the middle income country context.  The potential for development interventions—both financial and technical—to increase the resilience of MICs will also be addressed. Establishing indicators and early identification of fragility in MICs could enable the international community to intervene proactively with fragility risk mitigation and prevention measures.

Welcoming Remarks

Kyle Peters, World Bank Senior Vice President of Operations

Moderator

Shanta Devarajan, World Bank MENA Chief Economist

Speakers

Minister Imad Fakhoury, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Jordan

Minister Umayya Toukan, Minister of Finance, Jordan

Minister Hoshyar Zibari, Minister of Finance, Iraq (TBC)

Ziad Abdel Samad, Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), Lebanon

Wala KASMI, President and Founder, Youth Decides, Tunisia

Ayat Mneina, Founding Member, Libyan Youth Movement

Alaa Tartir, Program Director, Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, Palestine

Concluding Remarks

Hafez Ghanem, World Bank MENA Vice President

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    Imad Fakhoury

    Minister of Planning and International Cooperation of Jordan
    Imad Fakhoury is the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation of Jordan. Since November 2014, Mr. Fakhoury has served as a Senator in the Jordanian Parliament and Chairperson of King Abdullah II Fund for Development. From 2011 to 2014, he served as Chief of Staff/Director of Office of King Abdullah II at the Royal Hashemite Court. Between 2009 and 2011, he served as Minister of Public Sector Development and Minister of State for Mega Projects. Mr. Fakhoury has held several positions including: Regional Program and Policy Manager at the Bureau for Arab States of the UNDP in New York (1992-1995); Commissioner for Investment and Economic Development at the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority [ASEZA] (2000-2003) and one of the founders of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone; CEO of the Aqaba Development Corporation. Mr. Fakhoury has been a board member and founding member in many prestigious public sector and PPP companies, organizations and councils—locally and internationally. Mr. Fakhoury graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a BSc. in Biomedical Engineering and a MSc. in Engineering Management in 1990. In 1992, he graduated with a Masters Degree in Public Policy (MPP) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1998, he obtained an executive MBA degree from Kellogg Business School at Northwestern University.
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    Dr. Umayya Toukan

    Minister of Finance of Jordan
    Dr. Umayya Toukan is the Minister of Finance of Jordan. Previous positions held by Dr. Toukan include: Governor of the Central Bank; CEO of the Stock Exchange; Senior Economist at the Arab Monetary Fund in Abu Dhabi (1989-1991); Ambassador to the Netherlands, Ambassador to Belgium, and Ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the European Union for the period 1996 - 2000. Dr. Toukan lectured widely in the MENA region, Europe, and the United States including at the Jackson Hole Symposium in Wyoming (August, 2010), on Monetary Policy and Bank Regulation and Governance. Dr. Toukan was a member of the IMF External Advisory Group for the 2011 Triennial Surveillance Review which submitted its report to the IMF Executive Board during August 2011. Dr. Toukan completed his undergraduate and MBA studies at the American University of Beirut. He completed further postgraduate studies in Economic Development at Oxford University (Pembroke College), U.K. Dr. Toukan completed his doctoral studies in Monetary Economics at Columbia University in New York.
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    Hoshyar Zebari

    Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in Iraq
    Hoshyar Zebari is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in Iraq. Mr. Zebari is an Iraqi Kurd from the city of Aqrah within the Kurdistan region. He served as foreign spokesperson and official representative for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the 1990s. Since its foundation in 1946, the KDP demanded political autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan and built strategic alliances (including with Iran) against oppressive regimes. Mr. Zebari joined the armed national resistance campaign against the regime of Saddam from 1980 -1988. He held the post of the KDP’s Chief Foreign Representative from 1988-1991, and was named Head of KDP’s International Relations Bureau in 1992. In 2003, hMr. Zebari participated in the armed national resistance campaign against the regime of Saddam from 1980 -1988. He was appointed Foreign Minister of Iraq by the Iraqi Governing Council (established by and served under the United States-led Coalition Provisional Authority) and continued to hold the post during the term of the Iraqi Interim Government (2004), the Iraqi Transitional Government (2005), and the first permanent Government (2006). Mr. Zebari received his primary education in the Iraqi city of Mosul. He holds a BA degree in Sociology from Jordan University and a Master’s degree in Sociology of Development from Essex University.
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    Ziad Abdel Samad

    Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND)
    Ziad Abdel Samad is the Executive Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND). He is the president of Euro-Mediterranean NGO Platform and a member of the coordination committee of the Social Watch, the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) and the Reality of Aid Network (RoA). Ziad is member of the CSO Advisory Committee to the UNDP Administrator. He has been active in the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reforms (CCER) in Lebanon.
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    Ayat Mneina

    Founding member the Libyan Youth Movement
    Ayat Mneina is a founding member of the international news and youth development organization, the Libyan Youth Movement. She regularly contributes to several media outlets lending her expertise to provide insight on developments in Libya and also works as a freelance consultant specializing in civil society in Libya, democratic transition in North Africa, social media as well as Youth development in Libya. She has most recently spoken at the Interkulturelt Museum in Oslo at the Human Rights Watch photo exhibition, the Gaddafi Archives as well as at BBC Democracy Day and BBC Newsnight. She has previously spoken at panels at the annual Middle East Institute Conference, the United Nations European Association, the Google Ideas Summit and the inaugural Build Peace Conference at MIT, the London Festival of Photography. Ayat pursued her undergraduate degree at the University of Manitoba. She has a Masters degree in Public Health and Health Economics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, England. She is Canada-based and currently works as a Research Associate at the University of Manitoba.
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    Wala Kasmi

    Founder and CEO of Youth Decides in Tunisia
    Wala Kasmi is a Tunisian social entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Youth Decides, an NGO based in Tunisia. Combining her knowledge as a computer science engineer and her activism before and during the Tunisian revolution, Wala is one of the leaders proposing concrete solutions to the post-revolutionary countries in the Arab world. She is working on youth inclusion and empowerment. Kasmi is also an independent researcher in technology. She published several articles on her blog on liberation.fr during the last presidential elections and she took part in many international and Mediterranean conferences.
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    Alaa Tartir

    Program Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
    Alaa Tartir is the Program Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. Tartir is also a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. Between 2010 and 2015, Tartir served as Researcher in International Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he earned his PhD.
details
  • Date: October 8, 2015
  • Time: 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. (Peru) / 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (ET) / 15:00 - 16:30 (GMT)
  • Location: 
  • : Lima Convention Center
  • : Mangomarca Room, 6th Floor
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