The Euro-Mediterranean Network for Economic Studies (EMNES) organizes its Virtual Annual Conference 2020: “What Pillars for Resilience of the Socio-Economic Models Post COVID-19 Pandemic in the Mediterranean?”. The event will take place online on Zoom, on 17-18 December 2020, starting at 02:00 PM CET.

COVID-19 pandemic has spread around the globe at a speed that caught governments unprepared in both developed and less developed countries. A global pandemic, caused by a little- known coronavirus, resulted in a major health crisis, which quickly transformed into an unprecedented economic and social crisis. Diverse and uncoordinated Policy responses struggled to respond to the trade-off between saving lives and maintaining the economies afloat.  The “Post-COVID 19” state of the world will, however, remain uncertain. The EMEA-EMNES research published in 2020, shows that countries exhibiting socio-economic vulnerabilities prior to the pandemic had lower capacity to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

In other words, the countries that have built a resilient system could better respond to the pandemic and rebound. Several pillars, including digitalisation, financial inclusion, social protection and safety net, regional integration via regional value chains, have been explored by EMNES research to offer policy answers on the design of recovery models post COVID-19.

The Euro-Mediterranean Network of Economic Studies (EMNES) new socio-economic vision stems from the quest for long-term economic policy solutions aiming at more inclusive, sustainable and employment driven socio-economic development in the region. With the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, EMNES contributed actively to the EMEA regional policy research initiative on COVID-19 launched on 18 March 2020.

Against this background, the EMNES Annual Conference 2020 aims to discuss and to disseminate the results and conclusions of the work accomplished under EMNES policy research.

The EMNES Annual Conference 2020 includes EMNES Researchers, EMNES Fellows, Associate Committee and Advisory Committee members, international economists, policy experts and policy makers. Among them:

· Prof. Rym Ayadi, President, Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), Director, Euro-Mediterranean Network for Economic Studies (EMNES)

·  H.E. Hala El Said, Minister of Planning and Administrative Reforms, Egypt

·  Daniel Gros, Distinguished Fellow and Member of the Board, Centre for European Policy Studies

·  Cinzia Alcidi, Member of the Steering Committee of EMNES & of the Executive Board of EMEA, Director of Research, Centre for European Policy Studies

·  Moubarack Lo, Director General of the Bureau of Economic Prospective, Senegal

·  Maria Helena de Felipe, Advisory Board member, EMEA, President, AFAEMME

·  Ralph Chami, Member of EMNES and EMEA Advisory Boards and Assistant Director IMF

·  Raja Almarzoqi, Member of EMNES and EMEA Advisory Boards and Institute of Diplomatic Studies

·  Roger Albinyana, Advisory Board member, EMEA, Director of Mediterranean Regional Policies and Human Development, IEMed

The Euro-Mediterranean Network for Economic Studies (EMNES) is a network of partners and associates research institutions and think tanks working on socio-economics in the Euro-Mediterranean. EMNES is supported by 32 Universities and Research Institutions from Algeria, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and the UK, and it is coordinated and co-funded by the European Commission and the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA).