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Special Plenary 1: The Macro-institutional aspects of Social Protection and the Role of the State



Published
March 28, 2022

From a social perspective, while monetary and fiscal policies managed to relatively stabilize MENA economies, they failed to address structural and social issues. Indeed, there is now widespread recognition of the need to integrate macroeconomic management and social policies. While with limited success, macroeconomic management in MENA has focused on price stability and enhancing the role of the private sector as key drivers for economic growth, social policies were not sufficiently mainstreamed in the design of macroeconomic policies. Indeed, social policies were always “added-on” without being fully integrated in macroeconomic policies. Thus, thinking beyond the current crisis, it is pertinent to rethink the role of the state as provider of universal social protection in a world economy increasingly vulnerable to pandemics and other shocks.

Among other issues, this session will ask the following questions:

What is the role of the State in making social policies more inclusive and more sustainable? How macroeconomic policies can be equitable without being less efficient?

Is universal social protection feasible in light of the limited fiscal space of MENA economies?

How to align the political economy challenge for tax reform and enhancing the resource mobilization capacity of states in MENA and other developing countries?

How social policies can be mainstreamed in macroeconomic management?

Chairperson:
- Nesreen Barakat, Founder and Managing Director, To-Excel Consulting

Keynote Speaker:
- Alan Gelb, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

Lead commentators:
- Najat El Mekkaoui, Professor of Economics, University Paris-Dauphine
- Hania Sholkamy, Associate Professor, American University in Cairo
- Nada Eissa, Associate Professor, Georgetown University – TBC
Category
Management
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