The first MENA Economic Developments and Prospects report was launched by the Chief Economist's Office of the Middle East and North Africa Region in 2005. This annual report aims to shed light on recent key economic development in the region and the forces underlying the region's diverse economic outcomes. It analyzes the region's short-term growth prospects, as well as the prospects for longer-term growth based upon progress in implementing broad-based structural reforms. In addition, each issue devotes particular attention to a theme of importance to the region. With the spectacular rise in oil prices, the first MENA Economic Developments and Prospects Report (2005) analyzed the impact of the oil price shock on the region, in terms of its relative size, its transmission channels throughout the broader region, and the manner in which the windfall revenues are being managed. In 2006, the report highlighted the state of the region's financial markets, to understand how they are poised to meet the region's development challenges. It is hoped that the MENA Economic Developments and Prospects Report deepens the understanding of the region's development progress, prospects and challenges.
The objective of this 2009 MENA Economic Developments and Prospects is to review the implication of the  triple food-fuel-financial crisis for MENA economies.
Chapter 1 reviews the year 2008 and the first few months of 2009. It discusses the impact of the global economic environment and MENA countries’ responses  to the initial impact of the food-fuel-financial crises.
Chapter 2 reviews MENA countries’ prospects for 2009 and 2010 and discusses policies that can be envisaged to mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis on  the region.
Chapter 3 goes beyond the short-term concerns about the current crisis and discusses structural factors that affect MENA countries’ vulnerability to shocks and their flexibility and ability to respond to future crises.
This is the fourth report in a series of annual overviews of the region. MENA 2008 Economic Developments and Prospects, like its predecessors, reports key macroeconomic developments from the regional perspective as well as progress with structural reforms. The aim is to identify the forces shaping economic outcomes in the region and to highlight the key issues that affect the region’s growth prospects.
The thematic focus of this year’s report is intra-regional integration. This is viewed not just as a set of preferential trade agreements but also as a means to foster the flow of labor, capital and investment. The report suggests the adoption of a paradigm of open regionalism in which regional preferences would be used as stepping stones towards greater integration with the global economy.
The thematic chapter focuses on regional integration as seen from a broader perspective that includes trade in goods and services, labor, capital and infrastructure. As was the case with previous year’s publications, we hope that the report will deepen public understanding of the region’s progress, prospects, and challenges.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continued to garner international attention over 2006. Over the last few years the region has performed remarkably well on many economic fronts. The MENA region has demonstrated strong economic performance, driven to a large degree by high oil prices and a favorable global environment, but also by reform policies that while gradual are in general on the right track. Growth in the region continues to be robust for the fourth year in a row, with strong external inflows and continued fiscal and external account surpluses at the regional level. Labor markets have reacted positively to these economic developments and unemployment has declined at a time when labor market pressures are at their peak. The region, despite many common economic and social features is remarkably diverse, and economic developments and outcomes differ significantly among its countries.
This year marks the third volume in the series of annual overview reports on the MENA region. MENA Economic Developments and Prospects 2007 aims to build upon the established tradition of an annual review, monitoring key macroeconomic developments from the regional perspective as well as progress with structural reforms, in order to identify the forces shaping economic outcomes in the region and to highlight the key issues that affect the region’s growth prospects. This year, the thematic chapter focuses on labor market issues, a sector of vital importance to the region, due to the demands that its demographic transition is imposing on employment and socioeconomic infrastructures. As always, it is hoped that the report deepens the understanding of the region’s development progress, prospects, and challenges.
For the third straight year, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has enjoyed a spectacular year of economic growth. With oil prices continuing their upward climb, MENA countries grew by an average of 6 percent over 2005, led by the region's predominant oil exporters. Over the last three years, MENA's economic growth has been the strongest experienced by the region since the 1970s. But MENA's growth upturn has not been universally shared, and with rising energy use and diminished positive transmission channels from the region's oil economies, resource poor economies are increasingly feeling adverse impacts from rising oil prices. Moreover, the region is contending with large fiscal implications from the heavy reliance on domestic energy subsidies.
This is the second annual issue of the World Bank's MENA Economic Developments and Prospects Report, highlighting the recent key economic developments as well as the forces underlying the region's economic outcomes. It analyzes MENA's medium term growth prospects given global forecasts, and charts the region’s progress with implementing comprehensive structural reforms needed for longer-term growth. As with last year, the 2006 MEDP also examines a theme of particular importance to the region, with this year's theme devoted to regional financial markets. With oil prices continuing their soaring advances, the efficiency with which the region channels the oil-related resources into the real economy will depend critically upon financial sectors. It is thus particularly opportune to to examine the state of the region’s financial systems, to understand how they are poised to meet some of the region's development challenges
The first in a series of annual reports, the 2005 MENA Economic Developments and Prospects report sheds light on the recent key economic developments in the region and the forces underlying the region’s diverse economic outcomes. It analyzes the region’s short-term growth prospects given global forecasts and current structural features of the economies, as well as the region’s prospects for longer-term growth based upon progress in implementing comprehensive structural reforms. With economic headlines increasingly devoted to the rise in oil prices and what this implies for the MENA region, this first issue devotes particular attention to this theme, analyzing the impact of the oil price shock on the MENA region in terms of its relative size, its transmission channels throughout the broader region, and the manner in which windfall revenues have been managed.
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