Ahmed Galal

Board of trustees

Ahmed Galal is currently chair of the board of trustees of the Middle East and North Africa Health Policy Forum (MENA HPF), and is a member of the board of directors of several institutions, including the Center for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI, Canada), Zewail City, Beltone Financial Holding, Al Nidaa NGO, and Baseera. He is a columnist at Al Masry Al Youm Newspaper (Cairo).

Ahmed was Egypt's finance minister (2013-14), the managing director of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and the director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES). Before that, he worked for 18 years for the World Bank, where he conducted research and provided policy advice to governments in several regions.

He has authored or co-authored 15 books, including Welfare Consequences of Selling Public Enterprises and The Road Not Traveled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa. He also authored several journal articles and book chapters.

In 2004, he was awarded the prestigious regional prize for Economic and Social Sciences by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences. Ahmed holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.

He served as a member of IIED's board of trustees until June 2020.