Participants

Mr. Ferid Belhaj

Vice President, Middle East and North Africa Region , The World Bank , United States

Ferid Belhaj took up the position of World Bank Group Vice President for Middle East and North Africa on July 1, 2018. Prior to this, Mr. Belhaj served 15 months as the Chief of Staff of the President of the World Bank Group.

From 2012 to 2017, Mr. Belhaj was World Bank Director for the Middle East, in charge of World Bank work programs in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran, based in Beirut, Lebanon. In this capacity, he led the Bank engagement on the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on the region, including the creation of new financing instruments to help countries hosting forcibly displaced people; the ramping up of the Bank drive towards the reconstruction and recovery of Iraq during and after the ISIS invasion and the scaling up of the Bank’s commitments to Lebanon and Jordan.

Before taking up his Mashreq assignment, Mr. Belhaj served as World Bank Director for the Pacific Department (2009-2012), where he developed a regional strategy that scaled up Bank engagement in small and fragile states, and tripled lending operations of the International Development Agency, one of the five institutions under the umbrella of the World Bank Group that provides interest-free loans and grants for Low-Income Countries.

From 2007 to 2010, Mr. Belhaj was the World Bank’s Special Representative to the United Nations in New York, where he engaged with various UN agencies on a range of programs, mainly climate change, the Millennium Development Goals, fragile and post-conflict states and the global financial and food crises.

Ferid Belhaj served as World Bank Country Manager for Morocco from 2002 to 2007, where he developed a new and multifaceted dialogue with one of the best performing Middle-Income countries.

A Tunisian national, Mr. Belhaj joined the Bank in 1996 as Senior Counsel in the Legal Department, managing a number of legal and judicial reform projects. He also served as Bank Counsel for countries, including Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Algeria and Thailand.

The Conference Participants

H.E. Majed bin Abdullah Al-Hogail

Minister of Municipality and Rural Affairs and Housing , Saudi Arabia

H.E. Ayman Al-Sayari

Governor , Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) , Saudi Arabia

H.E. Mohammed Al-Jadaan

Minister of Finance , Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

H.E. Giancarlo Giorgetti

Minister of Economy and Finance , Italy

H.E. Mathias Cormann

Secretary-General Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development

H.E. Mohammed El-Kuwaiz

Chairman , Capital Market Authority (CMA) , Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

H.E. Faisal Al Ibrahim

Minister of Economy & Planning, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

H.E. Khalid Al-Falih

Minister of Investment of Saudi Arabia

H.E. Dr. Muhammad Al Jasser

Chairman , Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group , Saudi Arabia

H.E. Dr. Nabeel Koshak

CEO and Board Member , SVC , Saudi Arabia