Defined by uncertainty, the first half of 2025 was not an easy feat for the Egyptian and global economies. Amid the global and geopolitical challenges, Egypt’s capacity to mitigate, adapt and capitalize on opportunities during times of turbulence was tested. This was the centerpiece of discussion in the opening session, What’s Next? Navigating Egypt’s Economic Landscape Amid Global Turbulence, held as part of the Business Forward Annual Event 2025.
Featuring Mohamed Youssef, CEO of Dcode Economic and Financial Consulting and Dina Abdel Fattah, chair of the Mohamed Shafik Gabr Department of Economics at Onsi Sawiris School of Business, the discussion reflected on this intriguing moment, not only for the Egyptian economy but also for the global frontier.
Between Isolationism and Collaboration
“The world is facing deep economic turbulence, but this time, it’s not just financial or commercial— it’s also ideological,” said Abdel Fattah, opening up the discussion with this rather decisive note. Throughout the first half of 2025, one particular red light has been flashing- the alarm that the world’s economy is no longer running by its traditional playbook. The discussion highlighted that our understanding of the economy is facing a global paradigm shift. For instance, Youssef highlighted that there has been a significant departure from the Washington Consensus. This set of economic policy recommendations promoted by international financial institutions based in Washington D.C. during the 1980s and 90s, were once the go-to guide for developing economies – but their time has long passed.
The Washington Consensus pushed for liberalization and the propagation of free-market policies. In a world constantly pushed back by forces of protectionism, state-led capitalism and fragmented global governance, as underlined by Abdel Fattah, these concepts collapse under their own weight. Economies like that of Egypt need to adapt, to understand the current waves in the economy and to mitigate them appropriately.
Youssef highlighted that global shocks starting with COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine and the current regional instability experienced in the Middle East meant that countries are becoming more cautious in terms of economic activities with other countries. Therefore, businesses had to enhance their resilience— Youssef highlighted that the key to this was through “shifting their mindset from serving locally to serving abroad.” In other words, one could say that in order to get ahead of the growing isolationist sentiment, businesses must learn how to gain the market’s trust again, befriending it to seize an opportunity of growth.
The Way Out
While catering to a global market is one of the keys to activating resilience, it is not the whole solution. Economic growth is also grounded in local policy reforms that empower businesses to perform to their best capacity. Youssef underlined that for “businesses to flourish, you need, first of all, to have the policy environment that could support them,” and Abdel Fattah chimed in, “What we are currently needing is moving away from policy as a prescription to policy as an iteration, grounding the reforms on local evidence, not just looking at global templates and adopting our reforms to these global templates.”
These remarks take the discussion back to the Washington Consensus, these economic recommendations are not only losing their influence because the world is becoming increasingly closed-up but also because developing countries like Egypt are starting to observe their policies inwards, rather than taking reform in a top-down manner. Emerging economies are now creating their own narrative to be able to actively cater to and engage with the global market on their own terms. The discussion emphasized that economic policy must be a combination of collaboration between stakeholders: the government, private sector, academia and civil society in order to ensure that reform is progressive and contextually grounded. It is about finding where and how we fit in the bigger picture rather than superimposing it on ourselves.
The Key to Strength
Global relevance and localized policies help economies progress and companies to stay on the rise, but what moves this machine of progress? Policies and market strategies cannot move themselves on their own, what truly matters is the people. Abdel Fattah underlined that for a country with an increasingly growing young population like Egypt, the human capital is a key factor in making or breaking the economic game, she says, “In times of crisis, it is not really capital and commodities that are holding societies together, it is actually people who are holding societies together.”
Speakers emphasized that empowering the labor market through skilling, upskilling and reskilling is critical to sustaining long-term growth, especially amid constant global disruptions.
To sustain economic resilience, Egypt must pursue a threefold approach: understand global dynamics, engage with local systems and empower its youth. These elements must work together, as true development is a continuous process of learning and building. As Abdel Fattah stated, “Reform cannot be something we inherit, it has to be something that we build, collectively and iteratively.”
