The COVID-19 pandemic has brought an additional set of challenges to the economies of the MENA region. Governments in the region, like many across the works, ratified containment measures to mitigate the human toll of the virus, at the expense of economic activity. According to IMF projections, the MENA region’s economy is estimated to be contracting by about 4.7% in 2020 because of such measures. The pandemic continues to challenge the region’s medical systems, public sector, and social stability. While the priority is a strong and quick recovery, the current crisis also brings new opportunities to rethink the structure of regional economies, better integrating productivity and economic efficiency with inclusiveness, resilience, and sustainability goals. The post-pandemic recovery offers the region, like the rest of the world, a chance to adopt a comprehensive reform agenda tackling some the region’s fundamental structural issues, promoting a more inclusive growth model.  

How to foster an inclusive post-crisis recovery?  

How to tackle inequalities and shrinking opportunities for the middle class?  

How to unlock the region’s vast economic potential of youth and women and ease the constraints that hamper their creative energies?

Guy Ryder, Director General, International Labour Organization  

Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, Egypt

Hamad bin Sulaiman Al Bazai, Deputy Minister of Finance, Saudi Arabia 

Sultan Bin Rashid Al-Khater, Undersecretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Qatar

Jeffrey Schlagenhauf, Deputy Secretary General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Moderators 

Amy Kellogg, Fox News 

Karim El Aynaoui, President, Policy Center for the New South, Morocco