About This Project
Transforming complex economic data into clear, accessible, and engaging narratives to foster a more informed public debate on debt and development in the MENA region.
Our Mission
IFI Economics is an initiative of the MENA Fem Movement. It was born from a simple but powerful idea: the critical conversations about external debt, austerity, and the policies of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) should not be confined to academic papers and closed-door meetings.
This project serves as a public-facing platform to equip civil society, journalists, and the public with tools to understand how these global financial structures impact daily lives across the Middle East and North Africa.
Our Approach: A Feminist Lens on Economics
This work is grounded in a feminist economic perspective. We challenge conventional frameworks by asking not just *if* a country can repay its debt, but *who* bears the cost of that repayment. Our analysis goes beyond GDP figures to examine the human impact of debt, focusing on:
- Social Justice: How austerity measures disproportionately harm women and marginalized communities by cutting essential services like healthcare, education, and social protection.
- Data Transparency: Scrutinizing the methodologies used by institutions like the IMF to reveal how flawed calculations can create misleading narratives and harmful policies.
- National Sovereignty: Investigating how debt conditionality can limit a country's ability to set its own economic and social priorities.