The emerging market economies of the Black Sea - including Turkey, Ukraine, and Georgia - are facing significant economic challenges, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such challenges are impacting the overall security of these countries, and the security of the wider region. The Middle East Institute’s (MEI) Frontier Europe Initiative is pleased to host a panel event to explore these challenges.
What are the internal economic dynamics of Turkey, Ukraine, and Georgia? How can they adequately manage a post-pandemic recovery, both as individual states and through cooperation with regional neighbors?
Speakers:
Altay Atli
Founder, Atli Global
Altay Atlı is the founder and managing director of “Atlı Global”, an Istanbul-based advisory firm providing consulting and executive training services on international markets, global affairs and political risk. He is also a lecturer at the Asian Studies program of Boğaziçi University. Previously working as a research coordinator at Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), he held teaching and research positions at Koç University and Sabancı University Istanbul Policy Center as well.
Altay was chosen a "Global Emerging Voices Fellow” by Torino World Affairs Institute, in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Australian National University, and Stiftung Mercator; and he was recognized as a “Young Academics Fellow” by the Global Relations Forum. He is an expert member at the China Network of Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) and in addition to the weekly TV show “Rising Asia” he prepares and hosts on Ekotürk, a Turkish national channel, he regularly appears on Turkish and international channels commenting on developments in global affairs and Turkey’s international relations.
Panayotis Gavras
Head, Policy and Strategy, Black Sea Trade and Development Bank
Panayotis Gavras is Head of the Policy and Strategy Department at the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank where he has directed a variety of strategic and operational activities, and led the Bank’s economic research on the Black Sea Region. He has published a number of reports and articles on the Region, on the topic of country risk, as well as on financial regulatory issues related to credit rating agencies and their role in banking supervision. Prior to BSTDB, he worked at the World Bank as a project specialist, on health, education, and other social sector projects in South Asia. He has also worked at the National Foundation for the Reception and Resettlement of Repatriated Greeks, based in Athens.
Anthony Kim
Editor, Index of Economic Freedom, The Heritage Foundation
Anthony B. Kim is research manager and editor of the Index of Economic Freedom. Previously, Kim had served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation. Focusing on policies related to economic freedom, entrepreneurship, and investment in various countries around the world, Kim researches international economic issues. As an editor, Kim also manages the production of The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom. The Index, a widely respected policy guide book, tracks the march of economic freedom around the world by measuring 12 freedoms – from property rights to entrepreneurship – in 186 countries. After a decade of publication, Heritage executives in 2007 decided changes were needed to make the Index more accessible to more readers -- from policymakers to investors around the globe. As a leading Heritage expert who grade the listed countries, Kim helped oversee and implement those changes.
Kim’s commentary and opinion pieces have been published by The Wall Street Journal’s Asia edition, The New York Post, The Washington Times, National Review Online and the Korea Herald among others. He has been quoted in major U.S. and international media, among them Financial Times, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Fox Business News and Voice of America. Kim won Heritage's prestigious Drs. W. Glenn and Rita Ricardo Campbell Award, which goes to the employee who makes “an outstanding contribution to the analysis and promotion of a free society.”
Mamuka Tsereteli
Non-resident fellow, Frontier Europe Initiative, MEI
Dr. Mamuka Tsereteli is a Senior Fellow at Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at American Foreign Policy Council, based in Washington, DC. He has more than thirty years of experience in academia, diplomacy and business development. His expertise include economic and energy security in Europe and Eurasia, political and economic risk analysis and mitigation strategies, and business development in the Black Sea-Caspian region. Dr. Tsereteli serves as President of the America-Georgia Business Council. He is a member of the part time faculty at Johns Hopkins SAIS and American University in Washington, DC.
Iulia Joja, moderator
Senior fellow, Frontier Europe Initiative, MEI
Iulia-Sabina Joja is a Senior Fellow for the Frontier Europe Initiative and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. lulia’s research and teachings focus primarily on European and Black Sea security. Prior to this, Iulia served as an adviser to the Romanian President and as a deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia. She has worked with the Romanian delegation to the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. lulia was also a visiting scholar at the Center of Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces in Potsdam/Berlin and a DAAD post-doctoral fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Photo by MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images