Overview: The war in the Middle East rewrote everything
Every single briefing, whether it was on Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East itself, Europe, or the Western Hemisphere returned to one main factor: the war that broke out in the Middle East as of February 2026. This changed the economic forecast in ways that nobody modeled just months earlier. Oil prices surged past $100 a barrel, the Strait of Hormuz, though which roughly one-fifth of the global oil supply and more than a quarter of the global liquid natural gas (LNG) passes, came close to a standstill. The European gas prices rose by roughly 60 percent, which exceeds the spike that occured after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Jihad Azour, Director of the IMF Middle East and Central Asia Department, stated that this shock is broad, deep, and still unfolding. This is not abstract. These numbers translate into prices at the markets in Dhaka, fuel costs for families in Manila, and more issues than we can expect.
The economists in the room spoke in projections and basis points, but what they were really describing was the daily arithmetic of survival for hundreds of millions of people.
Region by region: a world unevenly exposed
With this shock, the scale of its impact depends on where you live. Krishna Srinivasan, Director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, discussed that Asia is highly energy-intensive. Oil and gas use in the region amounts to about 4 percent of GDP, nearly double Europe’s share. For some economies like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, energy dependence is even higher, which means these countries do not have a lot of room to absorb the price shock that will eventually hit ordinary households.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the picture was even starker. Countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria spent years successfully going through reforms - median inflation in the region fell to 3.4 percent. And then the war happens, generating a massive energy shock.
For the Middle East itself, the numbers were hard to process. Regional growth in the MENA area is now projected at just 1.4 percent in 2026, a downgrade of 2.3 percentage points from October, 2025 forecast. Jihad Azour mentioned that this was among the largest six-month downgrades to a regional growth projection the IMF had made since the global financial crisis. For Europe, the Iran war is expected to shave 0.5 percentage points off GDP from Euro area growth over two years. In a more severe scenario, that number rises to 1.7 percentage points lost.
Picture for young generation
There was a topic in the Asia briefing that Krishna Srinivasan mentioned - youth unemployment across major Asian economies - that kept me thinking. Her research showed the reason for the increase in youth unemployment is not because young people are unskilled, but because they are overskilled given the jobs available. Higher educated young workers are struggling to find a position that matches their qualifications, which creates the persistent skill mismatch and a weak connection between the education systems and labor market needs. Our generation also enters the labor market with the looming adoption of AI, which potentially delivers significant gains in growth and productivity. However, when the AI usage moves faster than skills adjust, it could give rise to a dramatic mismatch between jobs and skills, making things worse for young workers.
My generation enters an economy in a simultaneously more precarious and more technologically powerful position than ever before. We are entering the labor markets where the rules are changing in the real time, with the automation, adoption of AI, geopolitical shocks, and other aspects. IMF economists acknowledged these matters. The solutions that the IMF proposes including rethinking education, strengthening safety nets, and investing in clean energy. These solutions would ultimately increase resilience. To be a part of this generation, we have to adapt to change, with a picture of how the world economy is moving forward. The challenge for our generation is to develop an understanding and awareness of surrounding systems, whether in labor markets, technology, or global economics as a whole.