Climate Action and Development in Fragile Economies: Insights from Iraq

In Iraq, a multidimensional development and climate crisis is brewing. Iraq’s oil-dependent development model, weakening human and institutional capacity, and its deep social divides and inequalities are ingredients of a “perfect storm” centring on a development-climate-fragility nexus. This talk will introduce the World Bank’s new diagnostic tool, the Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs), with focus on the Iraq report as a case study. The lecture will discuss the CCDR’s analytical insights around Iraq's most pressing development needs and climate challenges, and how they can be addressed simultaneously.

Ali Ahmad is a Climate Change Specialist at the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Department working on issues at the intersection of international development, fragility and climate change. Prior to joining the World Bank, Ali was a research fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he worked on assessing the impacts of climate change on energy systems’ resilience and economics. Between 2016 and 2020 he served as director of the Energy Policy Program at the American University of Beirut. Ali has a first degree in Physics from the Lebanese University, and a PhD in Engineering from Cambridge University.