IFC’s Global Corporate Governance Forum (Forum) in collaboration with IFC Private Enterprise Partnership for the Middle East and North Africa (PEP-MENA) organized a two-day workshop to strengthen the role of Institutes of Directors and Corporate Governance associations in the MENA region. The high level workshop was held on 22nd to 23rd of October, 2008 and was hosted by the Ministry of Economic and General Affairs in Morocco. The workshop was structured on the basis of the Forum’s Toolkit I on “Building Sustainable Director Training Organizations” and was attended by more than ten countries from the MENA region.
In his welcoming remarks H.E. Mr. Nizar Baraka, Minister for Economic & General Affairs Morocco, said; “Morocco has achieved remarkable progress in the field of corporate governance practices and is the first country in the Maghreb region to have a Corporate Governance Code”.
Mr. Baraka, who chaired the opening ceremony, insisted that "in the current context of an open economy, it became essential to find ways to promote national competitiveness, to be able to take up challenges and impulse a new dynamic into MENA region economies” - calling for further efforts to improve corporate governance standards.
He also emphasized that well-trained directors are the key factor to the companies' performance and capacity to attract investors and that directors need a deep understanding of corporate governance to fulfill their duties effectively.
During the two-day workshop, each country’s delegates shared their experience in developing director training organizations and presented an action plan for establishing or expanding director training services in their respective countries. The event was moderated by Emmanuel Du Boullay, one of the founders of the French Institute of Directors and an expert commentary was carried out by Olli Virtanen, member of the Forum’s Private Sector Advisory Group and Secretary General of the Finnish Association of Professional Board Members.
This is the first of a series of workshops on building sustainable director training institutions. While this one focused on how to establish institutes, the planned up-coming workshops will focus on the training of trainers offered by both IFC PEP-MENA as well as the Forum’s director training products.
For more information about this workshop, please contact Mr. Hassan El-Shabrawishi at HElshabrawishi@ifc.org.
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