Ali Allawi

In May 2020, Dr. Ali Allawi was appointed Minister of Finance of Iraq in the cabinet of Mustafa al-Kadhimi. In April 2005, he was appointed to be the Minister of Finance in the Transitional Government headed by Dr.Ibrahim al-Jaffari, a post he held until May 2006 when he returned to private life. During this tenure he was directly responsible for Iraq embarking on a major program of macroeconomic stabilization and reform that included the restructuring of Iraq’s international commercial debt; the issue of Iraq’s first global bond; the liberalization of domestic fuel prices; agreement with the IMF on an SBA (Standby Arrangement); and the launching of Iraq’s major social security income support program for the needy. In January 2005, he was elected to Iraq’s Transitional National Assembly as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance. In April 2004, he was appointed to be Iraq’s first post-war civilian Minister of Defense. In September, 2003, Ali Allawi was appointed to be the Minister of Trade of Iraq under the Iraq Governing Council.

Dr. Allawi’s major research interests are in the history and political economy of the modern Middle East; and the economic history of the developing world.  In 2014, Yale University Press launched Ali Allawi’s major political biography of Faisal I of Iraq, set against the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the modern state system in the Middle East and Iraq.  His book The Crisis of Islamic Civilization was named as one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist magazine and won the Silver Prize of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Book Awards. His first book, The Occupation of Iraq, was published by Yale University Press in 2007.

Dr. Ali Allawi graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a BSc in Civil Engineering in 1968. He obtained an MBA from Harvard University in 1971.