Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Book Launch – Live Webinar: Business, Government and the SDGs: The Role of Public-Private Engagement in Building a Sustainable Future

Book Launch – Live Webinar: Business, Government and the SDGs: The Role of Public-Private Engagement in Building a Sustainable Future

ERF is pleased to organized a live webinar for the book launch on: Business, Government and the SDGs: The Role of Public-Private Engagement in Building a Sustainable Future, by Mahmoud Mohieldin, Sameh Wahba, Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez, Miral Shehata. Published by: Palgrave Macmillan.

About the Book:

Business, Government and the SDGs: The Role of Public-Private Engagement in Building a Sustainable Future aims to analyze and challenge the roles and traditional realms of influence of national and local governments, and businesses at a critical juncture in terms of achieving sustainable development, faces when tackling the dual challenges of climate change and post-COVID recovery. It establishes by evidence the necessity of adopting a holistic approach to sustainable development, as reflected in the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that realizes that bold climate action should come within the broader lens of sustainability. It offers arguments, case studies, and examples to showcase that neither national or local governments, nor companies, could afford to deviate from the SDGs in the recovery from the current crisis. The analysis frames the debate of how a balance between people, planet, and profits can be achieved and how nations, regions and cities, and businesses, with their representative organizations, can achieve a sustainable recovery from the current global crisis, and contribute to climate smart, resilient and inclusive development.

Most read

How trade policy can reduce MENA’s cereal import vulnerability

Heavy dependence on imported cereals, combined with climate change, water scarcity and geopolitical uncertainty, continues to threaten food resilience across MENA. This column explains how an inclusive trade policy can play a key role in making the region’s food security less vulnerable to shocks.

Digitalisation, global value chains and regional integration in MENA & SSA

Participation in global value chains is vital for countries pursuing structural transformation and inclusive economic development. This column summarises new evidence on how much production processes have been globalised in Africa and the Middle East relative to other regions; whether this process has taken place with partners within or outside the region; and whether it has taken place more in manufacturing or services.

The risks of a two-speed AI economy in MENA

Much of the debate about artificial intelligence in the Middle East and North Africa focuses on how many jobs it will replace. As this column explains, the more important challenge is that the new technology is likely to create a two-speed labour market, where countries with the capacity to invest in digital infrastructure and skills move rapidly ahead while others struggle to keep pace. Unless governments combine credible national reforms with targeted regional cooperation, AI could widen, not reduce, the economic divides across MENA.

Financing Lebanon’s Reconstruction: A Compact for Finance, Governance, and Accountability

As Lebanon embarks on another round of reconstruction, the key question is not how much financing can be mobilised, but whether each commitment is linked to a verified need, involves a transparent procurement process, is linked to clearly defined executing and operating institutions, and is based on a liability that is in line with the state’s ability to repay. This column proposes an operational mechanism for establishing that connection: a Reconstruction Finance and Accountability Compact.

Sanctions and conflict: why corruption changes the equation

Why do sanctions produce such different political outcomes across the countries that have been targeted? This column reports research examining the role of pre-existing corruption in shaping the relationship between sanctions and subsequent conflict or political instability. The evidence indicates that trade sanctions are associated with higher conflict-related deaths where pre-existing corruption is high.

The weak bread chain: cereal supply risks in six MENA economies

The Middle East and North Africa is one of the most food-import-dependent regions of the world, particularly for staple cereals such as barley, maize and wheat, and particularly in six countries – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. As this column reports, diversifying import sources has become an essential strategy for strengthening food security and improving resilience to geopolitical and climate-related disruptions.

From mega-investment to mega-productivity: closing MENA’s conversion gap

Across the Middle East and North Africa, governments are investing heavily in infrastructure, technology, diversification and new industries. Yet capital accumulation alone does not guarantee productivity growth. As this column argues, the region’s deeper challenge is its ‘investment-to-productivity conversion gap’: ensuring that large-scale investment translates consistently into stronger firms, technological diffusion, skills and better jobs. A different metric of success is required: not how much capital is deployed, but how much productive capability that capital leaves behind.

Why energy efficiency still struggles to attract finance in Egypt

Egypt has reduced energy subsidies and gradually adjusted domestic energy prices toward cost-recovery levels, improving the economic case for energy efficiency investments – but financing has not kept pace. Drawing on structured interviews with banks, developers and public officials, this column traces why energy efficiency projects in the country still struggle to attract capital, and sets out how a ‘financing ladder’ used elsewhere – from revolving funds to risk guarantees to green bonds – could close the gap.




Linkedin