Jihad Azour: The IMF’s new man for all seasons

Jihad Azour’s CV is what one expects of the monetary fund’s new regional head – an academic with government experience. And, while emphasising a conservative fiscal approach, he deals deftly with criticism in a soft-spoken manner.

Jihad Azour, the director of the IMF’s Menap area, was a former Lebanese finance minister. Victor Besa for The National

The IMF’s Jihad Azour can be fairly described as an archetypal international technocrat.

He has the kind of CV you would expect for the fund’s newly appointed top man for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (Menap). The 50-year-old former Lebanese finance minister is a dual national, Lebanese and French, with an academic background that is very much in the Grandes Écoles tradition, with two advanced finance degrees, including a doctorate, from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, as well as a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

But Mr Azour shows a politician’s touch when dealing with the kind of criticisms that have often been levelled at the IMF as coldly pursuing capitalism-friendly austerity policies that do not take into account the human costs. “You have to make sure there are certain issues and groups that are protected in the mix of fiscal adjustments,” says the soft-spoken economist, who started his career as a McKinsey & Co consultant. “As a fund, we have stretched our engagement in the region and now have financial commitments totalling US$24 billion across seven active programmes.”

The biggest of these – and the IMF’s second-largest globally – is the $12bn stabilisation package agreed with Egypt last year to help pull the country back from the brink of economic chaos in the wake of the Arab Spring’s tumult.

“The early implementation is positive,” he says. “Almost all the criteria set in 2016 have been met, with the exception of just one tax-related target. So far, the programme has helped on several issues – for example, the parallel foreign exchange market has almost disappeared – and it has brought confidence back. But it needs time.”

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El Sisi, had a successful visit to Washington last month and the IMF’s mission is preparing its assessment after recent visits. After evaluating those reports, the next stage – and the next tranche of IMF assistance – can be agreed, says Mr Azour.

The recovery for Egypt is important for regional stability as the country has one of the world’s highest levels of youth unemployment, estimated at 40 per cent.

How is the IMF helping to address this?

“The first answer is to bring growth up,” says Mr Azour. “Whenever you have growth above 5 per cent you start reducing unemployment and economic growth is an opportunity for the region to reconnect with the world economy.”

A concentration on investment in human capital is key, something that is lost for at least a generation when conflict takes hold – the IMF estimates that fully half of school-aged children have dropped out since the civil war started in Syria.

“Anything that has to do with investing in the long term can be a game changer, especially education, technology, research … And more inclusive growth, for women and youth. We have programmes in Egypt and Jordan [with conflict refugees] that do not capture the headlines but do considerable good in creating opportunities.”

Mr Azour says he has scheduled an IMF conference for early next year on “inclusive growth” to address issues that are holding back progress of women and young people in the region’s workforce.

The IMF’s philosophy maintains that those impediments can include overweening governments.

“Whenever you have governments that play a large role in the economy it tends to crowd out the private sector and opportunities for people to get ahead,” he says.

The IMF’s policy for all two dozen governments in the Menap region – whether in conflict or trying to move away from oil dependency – is to encourage a conservative fiscal approach and increased diversity, says the new regional director.

Follow The National's Business section on Twitter