Poverty and human development challenges in Arab countries

Presenters:

Adeel Malik is a development macroeconomist with a strong multi-disciplinary orientation. His research engages with questions of long-run development, political economy and economic history, with a special focus on Muslim societies. His work combines quantitative and qualitative research methods. Apart from engaging with cross-country empirics on development, he is trying to develop a broader research lens on the political economy of the Middle East. His most recent contribution to the field was an article on ‘The Economics of the Arab Spring’, which received the Best Paper Award. It has now been translated into Arabic and several other languages, and formed the basis for a dedicated story in The Economist magazine. Another emerging area of interest is the interplay between religion, land and politics in Pakistan, which he is exploring as part of an IFPRI-funded project on structural constraints to public goods provision in Punjab.

Khalid Abu-Ismail is Senior Economist at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). He currently leads or co-leads ESCWA’s work on global development challenges, beyond GDP, economic resilience, poverty, inequality and has formerly led ESCWA’s work on Economic Growth, Employment, MDGs, Middle Class, Fiscal Policies, and the Arab Vision 2030. He is the lead author of more than 50 technical papers and 20 UN flagship publications, including the 2022 World Development Challenges Report and the 2017 and 2023 Arab Multidimensional Poverty Reports. Formerly, he held positions of Poverty and Macroeconomic Policy Advisor at the United Nations Development Program Regional Offices for Arab States (2002-2012), Assistant to Minister of Public Enterprises in Egypt (1997) and Lead Economist with the Egyptian Cabinet’s Decision Support Center (1992-95). Khalid is a Policy Affiliate at the Middle East Economic Research Forum and a former Guest Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the Lebanese American University. He has a D. Phil. in Development Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York and MPhil in Development Planning and the Environment from the University of Dundee in Scotland.