In this follow-up video to the Center’s Post-Pandemic Inclusive Economic Recovery in MENA workshop, participant Nader Kabbani comments on what MENA region governments have learned from the COVID crisis and whether those governments have improved their policies since the pandemic. Following those thoughts, he elaborates on the need for more regional and sub-regional economic cooperation.
Nader Kabbani is senior fellow, director of research, and director of the Governance and Development Program with the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. Kabbani also serves as non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and research fellow with the Economic Research Forum based in Cairo. A development researcher and practitioner with over 20 years’ experience, Kabbani served as senior fellow and director of research with the Brookings Doha Center and director of policy and research at the Silatech Foundation. He was the founding director of the Syrian Development Research Centre at the Syria Trust for Development. During his career, Kabbani held positions on the economics faculty of the American University of Beirut and on the research staff of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California State Senate. Kabbani has worked as a consultant for several international organizations, including the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, and the United Nations Development Programme and has served on the advisory boards of several non-profit organizations and social enterprises. Kabbani has published policy papers and academic articles on a wide variety of development issues, mostly covering the Middle East. Kabbani has a BA from Claremont McKenna College and a PhD in economics from the Johns Hopkins University.
