Page 138 - MOE ENGLISH PR REPORT - OCTOBER 2024

11/1/24, 3:19 PM Inaugural Global Conference on Economic Diversification 2024 explores policy options, pathways and challenges on its first day - M…
Moderated by Dr. Nasser Saidi, Co-author of the Global Economic Diversification Index,
President of Nasser Saidi & Associates (NS&A), and Former Minister of Economy and Trade in

Lebanon, the session featured Dr. Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia
Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF); Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Special

Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda; Dr. Clovis Freire Jr., Chief of the Commodity Research
and Analysis Section at the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD); and Dr. Youness Abouyoub,

Chief of Governance and State Building at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western
Asia (UN ESCWA).

Day one continued with a Closed Policy Council on ‘Advancing Global Economic Diversification
Measurement: Towards Data-driven Policy’. The session convened high-level policymakers and

academic experts to discuss practical measures of economic diversification, challenges related
to measurement and data availability, and potential improvements to expand the impact of the

Global EDI index.

The day-one agenda also included two research paper sessions, covering diverse topics
including artificial intelligence and economic diversification, informal economic sector

legalisation for economic diversification, economic diversification and institutional quality,
economic complexity and commodity dependence, as well as economic diversification and
decarbonisation in oil and non-oil producing countries. The conference continues on the second

day with a series of closed panel discussions.

Held on 31 October and 1 November 2024, the Global Conference on Economic Diversification
2024 is the first of an annual series of events, set to bring together global policy experts,

government decision makers, research scholars, and academics from around the world,
working on the frontiers of research and practice of economic diversification. The full

conference proceedings and the MBRSG’s Global Economic Diversification Report are available
at the conference website: https://economicdiversification.com/

https://mid-east.info/inaugural-global-conference-on-economic-diversification-2024-explores-policy-options-pathways-and-challenges-on-its-first-day/ 4/4