Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Stephane Guimbert

Author

Stephane Guimbert
Division Director for Egypt, Yemen, and Djibouti, The World Bank

Stephane Guimbert was appointed Division Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti, effective August 1, 2023. Prior to this assignment, Guimbert was the Bank’s Operations Policy Director in the Operations Policy and Country Services Vice Presidency (OPCS). In this role, he led the Bank’s operations policy reform and interpretation for all financing instruments. He co-led the coordination of the IDA/IBRD COVID-19 vaccines program, the steering of the new Country Climate and Development Reports, and the methodology for Paris Alignment of all IDA/IBRD financing flows. He also established a coordination mechanism with other multilateral development banks (MDBs) on operational policies and strengthened the partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In his previous position as Director of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) Resource Mobilization and IBRD Corporate Finance department, he headed the team preparing and negotiating IDA replenishment strategies and policies, and coordinating their implementation across the institution. He managed the transformation of the IDA financial model and the creation of the IDA Private Sector Window. He also led the corporate finance function for the IDA and World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) balance sheets, including for the 2018 IBRD capital increase. He joined the World Bank in 2001, leading projects and analytical work in areas such as economic management, public finance management, private sector development, governance and trade. His work has taken him to Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Kenya, Nepal, and Thailand. Prior to joining the Bank, he was economist at the Ministry of Economy and Finance in France, working on trade and tax policy. He holds Masters degrees from Ecole Polytechnique, ENSAE Paris and the Sorbonne University.

Content by this Author

Empowering Egypt’s young people for the future of work

Egypt’s most urgent priority is creating more and better jobs for its growing youth population. This column reports on the first Development Dialogue, an ERF–World Bank joint initiative, which brought together students, scholars, policy-makers and private sector leaders at Cairo University to confront the country’s labour market challenge. The conversation explored why youth inclusion matters, what the data show and how dialogue and the forthcoming Country Economic Memorandum can inform practical pathways to accelerate job creation.

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Digitalising governance in MENA: opportunities for social justice

Can digital governance promote social justice in MENA – or does it risk deepening inequality and exclusion? This column examines the evolution of digital governance in three sub-regions – Egypt, Jordan and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council – highlighting how data practices, transparency mechanisms and citizen trust shape the social outcomes of technological reform.

Empowering Egypt’s young people for the future of work

Egypt’s most urgent priority is creating more and better jobs for its growing youth population. This column reports on the first Development Dialogue, an ERF–World Bank joint initiative, which brought together students, scholars, policy-makers and private sector leaders at Cairo University to confront the country’s labour market challenge. The conversation explored why youth inclusion matters, what the data show and how dialogue and the forthcoming Country Economic Memorandum can inform practical pathways to accelerate job creation.

Preparing youth for the workforce of the future

As economies undergo rapid digital and green transformations, young people face a growing mismatch between their skills and what the modern labour market needs. This column argues that enabling youth to compete in the workforce of the future requires systemic reforms in education, skills formation and labour market institutions, especially in developing economies.

Connectivity and conflict: understanding the risks of inequality in the Middle East

While high inequality does not always lead to conflict, new research reported in this column shows that widespread internet access acts as a catalyst, transforming economic grievances into political instability. For policy-makers in the Middle East and North Africa, this means that as digital connectivity expands, the security costs of ignoring economic disparities rise dramatically. The combination of idle youth, high inequality and high-speed internet is a volatile mix.

The political economy of stalled structural reforms in MENA

There is a persistent pattern to the structural reforms that are required to underpin economic progress in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa: ambitious strategies are announced and partially implemented, but ultimately they are diluted or reversed. This column argues that the repeated stalling of reform is not primarily a failure of economic design. Rather, it reflects deep-seated political economy constraints rooted in rent dependence, elite bargaining and weak institutional credibility. Without addressing these underlying dynamics, reform efforts are likely to remain symbolic rather than transformative.




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