1 November 2026
⭕Evolving waves of our times: prices, expressions and introspections🟢
💡Capturing the changing socio-economic conditions globally 🎥
📢 Aspiration continues, but outcomes tell a different tale 🖋️
↗️ Price rise and inflation: widespread phenomenon of rising commodity prices and economic uncertainty
↗️ Cost of living and affordability: systematic impact on communities, shrinking space for middle-class and economic opportunity for the bottom 25%
✅ Action: Are we consciously ignoring the pulse Oximeter of our societies?
🏷️development is such a complex phenomenon and involves interrelated linkages among major elements and factors;
🏷️ought to understand this underlying force in a broad canvas;
🏷️develop market measures to integrate policy, access and implementation.
✅ My take: Moving out from generalized solutions to address ever-changing nature of local growth and development challenges
🤝 Forging common sense in pricing of productive services
🤝 Ensuring actual, feasible and optimal income distribution
🤝 Preparing the next generation in resisting temptation
🤝 Moving beyond cash and care economy outputs
🤝 Fine tuning attitudes toward happiness, well-being and capabilities
🤝 Revitalizing real social compact outcomes 🌏
🎥 For insights and foundational ideas: George J. Stigler (Theory of price); Jan Tinbergen ( Income distribution); Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein (Nudge); Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (Good economics for hard times); Amartya Sen (Idea of Justice); and Daron Acemoglu (What Happened to liberal democracy)
✅ My 2008 paper argued some of these strategic insights in detail:
"A new way to link development to institutions, policies and geography": https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/633371?v=pdf
24 October 2026
⭕ Process, promise, and progress: Happy UN Day🟢
💡UN Day heralds the entry into force of the UN Charter on 24 October, 1945 🎥
📢 The same agenda, but a different year 🖋️
↗️settling disputes through diplomacy
↗️combating poverty and hunger
↗️promoting human rights
↗️delivering lifesaving aid to people affected by conflict, disasters and displacement.
✅ Action: no time to waste
🏷️Peace and Security: Peace, development and cooperation are mutually reinforcing;
🏷️Inequality: Inequalities continue to undermine resilience and social cohesion;
🏷️Climate Change: Climate change remains an existential threat for many countries;
🏷️Artificial Intelligence: Technological advances must be accompanied by effective governance.
✅ My take: Evolving global cooperative spirit
🤝 Poles to hubs: A changing lens
🤝 Bridging the choices
🤝 Connecting the dots: Policy shifts, realities and lessons
🤝 Promoting common aspirations
🤝 Shifting conversations in multifaceted policymaking
🤝 Pivoting to cooperative policy outcomes 🌏
17 October 2026
⭕ Eradiation of poverty must remain central to multilateralism: Moving beyond concepts and measurements, it is time now for results🟢
💡On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October:
📢 The reality of global poverty in 2025/2026: The facts and figures tell a sobering story 🖋️
↗️ 826 million people ( an estimated), around 10 per cent of the world's population
↗️3.8 billion people remain without any form of social protection
↗️284 million workers, 7.9 per cent of the world's employed population, were living in extreme poverty
↗️2.8 billion people worldwide face some form of housing inadequacy
↗️Official development assistance grants focused on poverty reduction fell by 8.7 per cent between 2023 and 2024, to $19.1 billion, returning to approximately 2015 levels.
✅ Action: key areas of policy focus:
🏷️Structural transformation, productive employment and decent work;
🏷️Expanding social protection systems;
🏷️Human capability development;
🏷️Reducing inequalities;
🏷️Addressing climate change and the intensification of natural hazards;
🏷️Fighting poverty in fragile and humanitarian contexts;
🏷️Modalities of delivery: building momentum, tracking progress, learning lessons, identifying emerging issues and adapting actions.
🤝Multi-stakeholders approach: deepen genuine, inclusive and meaningful partnerships and cooperation with:
🟰 civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations,
🟰 the private sector and
🟰 philanthropic organizations🌏
🎥 For insights and foundational work on this subject: Amartya Sen, Angus Deaton, Tony Atkinson, Arjun Sengupta, Abhijit Banerjee, Thomas Piketty.
✅ My paper with Professor Jaya Krishnakumar (2004):
See UN/ESCAP publications:
✍International Day for the Eradication of Poverty | United Nations https://bit.ly/4sbTKqE
✍ Prospects for poverty reduction in Asia and the Pacific: progress, opportunities and challenges, especially in countries with special needs https://bit.ly/4i5qcWY
#IMFMeetings #WBGMeetings #Jobs #Thailand2026 #UN #2030Agenda #EndPoverty #AsiaPacific
10 October 2026
⭕ Promotion of financial stability and multilateral financing: Going beyond the traditions🟢
💡As Ministers of Finance, Central Bank Governors, and policymakers converge in Bangkok for the 2026 International Monetary Fund The World Bank Group (IMF–WBG) Annual Meetings, let's reflect on how far the world economy and finance evolved since Bangkok hosted in 1991:
↗️From Structural Adjustment (1991) to Building Resilience (2026 )
↗️From Resources Transfer (1991) to Private Capital Mobilization (2026)
📢 The reality: The annual financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals now stands at over $4 trillion 🖋️
💰 Action: To close this massive financing gap, the priorities are clear :
🏷️ Tripling the lending capacity of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs);
🏷️ Unlocking private capital at scale;
🏷️ Scaling up new instruments to reduce debt vulnerabilities and speed up support for countries facing debt distress; and
🏷️ Giving developing countries a stronger voice and more meaningful participation in global financial institutions and international policymaking.
🤝Finance is the key instrument to advance international cooperation🌏
🎥 Despite these shifts in policy discussions, the main elements of financing strategies for development remain unchanged, particularly for the developing economies and least developed countries.
✅ My presentation in Lao PDR (2016):
See UN/ESCAP publications:
9 October 2026
⭕ Principles of justice, international law, and fundamental freedoms for all 🟢
📢 As global uncertainty continues, The Nobel Prize for Peace to Navi Pillay, former Chief of United Nations Human Rights
, serves as a timely call to promote international cooperation in solving global challenges:
🏷️ economic, social, and cultural development
🏷️ humanitarian affairs
🏷️ universal human rights
🤝 Multilateralism is nothing but a function of harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends🌏
21 September 2026
⭕ One podium, 193 nations: Progress, promise and prospects 🟢
📢 As global conversation unfolds at United Nations General Assembly, we look forward to hearing concrete actions to address the issues regarding:
🏷️ Socioeconomic progress
🏷️ Technological promise
🏷️ Cooperation prospects
Rebuilding trust in multilateralism is about improving people's daily lives and protecting our planet 🌏
#UNGA #AsiaPacific #multilateralism
14 September 2026
⭕Global Dialogues: Moments, momentum, and measures 🟢
📢 A cooperative spirit and tone remain our default option.
✅Important value addition includes:
🔹creating space for connections to flourish, and
🔹ensuring socio-economic development cooperation and knowledge exchanges to new heights.
🟰These moments serve as the foundation for ambitious development cooperation across countries.
✅By sitting together, face-to-face, these moments turn into momentum:
🔹paving the way to turn shared visions into real policy impacts: digital transformation, energy transition, supply chain resilience and sustainability.
🟰This momentum encourages innovations to thrive and transforms discussions into opportunities.
✅By scaling up policy coherence, concrete measures are
🔹elevating strategies into tangible outcomes for people and the planet.
🟰These public policy measures enhance financial, trade and governance results.
5 September 2026
⭕A note on predicting the predictions: Features and factors in GDP growth outlook 🟢
📢 Are economists and forecasters two-handed?
✅ As Lawrence R. Klein once noted, one economic outcome could occur, but a quite different outcome could also occur.
🟰 The user of economic interpretation of an actual outcome generally wants one specific interpretation and not two or more.
Back in 2006, I engaged in a global research project on this topic with Prof. Klein and many distinguished researchers at University of Pennsylvania.
🟰 Our goal was to evaluate macroeconomic prediction models around the world, particularly across #BRIC economies.
The assumption remains that all economic agents must have both equal access to relevant information and the capability to use it appropriately.
🟰 We identified, among several structural and institutional features, the significance of sustainability of GDP growth.
Key drivers shaping the growth outlook:
🔹International commodity import prices,
🔹domestic fiscal conditions, and
🔹environmental and climatic situation.
↗️ Fast forward, with the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, we recognized that heightened policy uncertainty would require a calibrated approach, one that integrates data and policy analysis at United Nations ESCAP.
Our engagements with experts underscored that a robust methodology would enable countries to accurately assess
🔹short-to-medium term economic perspectives, including GDP growth, and
🔹sustainable development.
↗️ In fact, growing business and investor expectations and confidence remain the foundational pillar for unlocking economic growth potential in 2026 and beyond.
📘 Prof. Klein's book is available here: https://lnkd.in/gAeGYy23, includes my chapter
🔹The economic growth story in India: past, present and prospects for the future
📘 ESCAP research is available here:
Alfredo Coutino Giselle Guzman, PhD, FRM Yoshihisa Inada Suleyman Ozmucur
30 July 2026
🏷️ Recently, I enjoyed an interesting interaction with Chef Hisanori Yamamoto, Pizzeria e Trattoria da ISA, #Tokyo, that sparked a good moment of reminiscence.
✍ During the preparation of a research paper on globalization and its implications for developing countries, I had several interactions with the late Professor Michael Mussa, former Chief Economist of the #IMF, at Geneva Graduate Institute in 2002/2003.
One idea we discussed was the cultural aspect of #globalization.
I vividly remember how #pizza 🍕, especially its origin, was used to describe the role of globalization.
🌏 As I reflect today, without mulling too much over the exact history of pizza, it is sufficient to reiterate that the cultural aspect of globalization has been as mind-blowing as its economic pillar.
💡 As the world now witnesses a backlash against international cooperation and solidarity, the equitable distribution of resources must be at the heart of our policy discourse.
🤝 People-to-people connection must be the mantra.
📢 Prosperity must be shared.