Abdlatif Al-Hamad, the Director General/Chairman of Board of Directors of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), welcomed the participants to ERF’s 17th Annual Conference which is dedicated to “Politics and Economic Development”, and expressed his delight at the decision to hold this year’s conference in a dynamic country such as Turkey.
In his opening remarks, the ERF Managing Director Ahmed Galal expressed his evolving belief that politics is very fundamental to economic development. It is politics that shapes policies which then influence the outcome “so you really have to start with politics”, confirmed Galal. Not only politics is driving the nature of economic policies but also is defining who is benefiting from it.
Galal welcomed the suggestion, made by some in the aftermath of the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, that the upcoming Nobel Prize should go to both Egyptian and Tunisian populations.
To know more about the topics to be discussed during the conference, check the agenda.
