GÜVEN SAK

Say no to global green gentrification GÜVEN SAK

Say no to global green gentrification

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) released unemployment figures in Turkey this week. The youth unemployment rate has now reached 25.3 percent, which of course, only counts people who are still actively looking for a job. If you add young people who have lost their hope of finding one, that figure rises to 36.5 percent in the first quarter of 2021. You might say that it is the responsibility of the government of Turkey to fix this, and you would be right. Realistically, however, we know that even if that is possible, it is highly improbable. I believe that what we see in Turkey points to a broader economic reality that global policymakers, who are currently designing pandemic recovery, need to take into account.

May 23 2021
Another goat, another dunam GÜVEN SAK

Another goat, another dunam

Doing Business in Israel is easy. Doing business in neighboring Palestine is not. I learned this the hard way, through experience. I was talking to a truly frustrated World Bank officer two decades ago at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Looking over the walls that were last mended by my Ottoman ancestors, I was trying to learn about her experience of working in the place. “If you have a project to support the Palestinian economy, you need to convince a designated Israeli official,” she told me. “You do your best. You’re happy to see progress over time, and you feel that you’re talking the same language with this official.”

May 15 2021
Trading in the Middle East GÜVEN SAK

Trading in the Middle East

I was talking to a foreign diplomat in Ankara the other day about how establishing diplomatic ties between countries is simpler than building up economic ties. Exchanging ambassadors is a straight-forward procedure when compared to the complexity of thousands or more economic actors reaching out into the other country, finding people they can work with, and navigating the inevitably complex physical and bureaucratic procedures the trade involves.

May 07 2021
A Blue Growth Strategy for Cyprus GÜVEN SAK

A Blue Growth Strategy for Cyprus

While sitting in my office in Ankara, I was reading the Bruegel study on the “Geopolitical implications of the Green Deal,” which claims to be “a plan to decarbonize the EU economy by 2050, revolutionize the EU’s energy system, profoundly transform the economy and inspire efforts to combat climate change.”

April 30 2021
A new Bretton Woods must consider developing countries GÜVEN SAK

A new Bretton Woods must consider developing countries

While giving a speech last week, Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), started and ended her speech with quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s message to the Congress, asking them to adopt the Bretton Woods Agreement: “The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger.” The moment Georgieva is invoking, of course, created the institutions she is currently presiding over. The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held in July 1944 at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to set the post-war rules of the global economic order. Delegates from 44 nations created a new international monetary system. That was the beginning of what we often call the rules-based international order and the new global trading regime.

April 02 2021
Seeing versus Viewing in Turkey-EU relations GÜVEN SAK

Seeing versus Viewing in Turkey-EU relations

The Charlemagne column in last week’s The Economist magazine made a comparison between Turkey and Britain, both countries being “scrappy outsiders” to the EU. “On leaving the EU, Britain was always going to have a choice: Should it be more like Switzerland or Turkey?” wrote the columnist, suggesting that the Brits have decided to be contentious, like Turkey. Our leaders are begrudging and childish, it suggests, throwing stones and asking for comforts they are not entitled to. I disagree. It’s the wrong analogy. A better way to think about it is to reflect on the difference between seeing and viewing. Let me explain.

March 26 2021
Why is Atatürk still so dear to Turks GÜVEN SAK

Why is Atatürk still so dear to Turks?

The British and French naval forces launched a campaign against the Turkish positions in the Dardanelles on March 18, 1915. They failed. The date has been drilled deep inside my head since childhood. On every March 18, my grandfather Ömer Kemal, may God rest his soul, use to start the day by asking all of us the significance of the date.

March 19 2021
Three scores of Daily News GÜVEN SAK

Three scores of Daily News

The Hürriyet Daily News (or “HDN,” as we call it) started life “three scores ago” as the Turkish Daily News on March 15, 1961. On this anniversary, I’d like to take the opportunity to reflect on how Turkey has changed in this time. Messy though it has been, I like to call this time the “grand transformation.” As this anniversary fits very nicely with my personal history, I see myself as a product of both the messiness and the grandness of it. Let me explain in five data points.

March 14 2021
How Bangladesh proved Kissinger wrong GÜVEN SAK

How Bangladesh proved Kissinger wrong

In 1971, Henry Kissinger called Bangladesh a “bottomless basket.” Five decades after its independence, Bangladesh is proving Kissinger utterly wrong.

March 13 2021