Office of the Chief Economist

The Office of the Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa region undertakes analytical work to support countries' efforts to achieve inclusive growth.

Economic Development Prospects: Investing for Growth and Jobs

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Sustaining the Recovery and Looking Beyond: A Regional Economic Developments and Prospects Report, January 2011
The impact of the global financial and economic crisis on the Middle East and North Africa region was relatively mild. Lack of integration and a large public sector helped insulate the region to some extent, but now these and other factors are slowing down the speed of its economic recovery. The report Middle East and North Africa: Sustaining the Recovery and Looking Beyond examines the major factors threatening the recovery and those that obstruct long-term growth—especially non-oil export growth. The report focuses on non-oil export growth as despite some progress in the past decade net exports contributed little to regional growth, and nonoil exports of goods and services remain below potential for the region as a whole. More 

Sustaining the Recovery in Times of Uncertainty: A Regional Economic Outlook  (October 2010)
The diagnosis suggests that while MENA is recovering, the pace has been less vigorous than the recovery in other developing regions. Growth in the region is expected to average 4% in 2010, an increase of slightly less than 2 percentage points (pp) over growth in 2009 and weak compared to increases of 5.6pp in advanced economies and 4.5pp in developing nations. Only by 2011 and 2012 is MENA’s growth expected to return to the average rates achieved prior to the economic and financial crisis.

Recovering from the Crisis: A Regional Economic Update (April 2010)
Growth in 2010 is expected to be 4.4 percent region-wide, driven by domestic absorption as well as a positive contribution from external demand.
The recovery from the crisis differs by country depending on initial conditions and the intensity of the impact via the three principal channels through which the global financial crisis affected MENA economies - the financial sector, the price of oil, and the balance of payments, reflecting the impact on trade, remittances and FDI flows.

2009 EDP: Navigating through the Global Recession 
The impact of the global economic environment and MENA countries’ responses to the initial impact of the food-fuel-financial crises. This 2009 EDP reviews the implication of the  triple food-fuel-financial crisis of 2007-08 for MENA economies. The crisis which led to the first global recession since World War II, is impacting MENA countries and compounding the impact of the generalized rise in commodity prices that peaked in mid-2008.

Related Global Report l Previous EDPs 

Economic Integration in the Maghreb
History and proximity suggest that trade and investment links with Europe should provide the most promising path to shared prosperity for the Maghreb countries. Indeed, this is the path being traced out by several of them. Find out from this report what constrains faster movement along this route.

Economic Integration in the Mashreq
Mashreq countries have deeper trade links with the European Union to the West than they do with each other or with other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Is this a lost opportunity? Could intra-regional trade facilitation and better transport links forge closer ties? Could better policies help the private sector in these countries make better business?

Economic Integration in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries
Thanks to large endowments of oil and gas, the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council trade a lot with the rest of the world and are very open to labor and capital flows. They also have an ambitious agenda for integration among themselves, featuring a customs union and common market (at present) and aiming for a common currency (in the medium term).

Bridging the Gap: Improving Capabilities and Expanding Opportunities for Women
Young people have relatively better access to education than some of their peers in other developing countries but they struggle to find jobs. Employment is even harder to find for young women seeking a job.

Status and Progress of Women in the Middle East and North Africa 
The report examines progress on gender indicators in the region in the following areas: economic participation, access to education, access to health care, public participation ad representation, and women’s legal rights.

The Environment for Women's Entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa
This report is about how women entrepreneurs can contribute more to the quality and direction of economic and social development in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Economic growth in the Middle East has been remarkable over the last four years, due mainly to higher oil prices. Rapid job growth has followed, driven mainly by the private sector. Yet the region still faces two important challenges: the first is to create better jobs for an increasingly educated young workforce; the second is to diversify its economies away from the traditional sectors of agriculture, natural resources, construction, and public works and into sectors that can provide more and better jobs for young people—sectors that are more export oriented, labor intensive, and knowledge driven.

Forty Years of Development Assistance from Arab Countries
Over the past four decades, Arab aid, which has been relatively under-studied, has played an important role in global development finance.

 

 

Labor Migration from North Africa
The subjects of this migration research program are four countries in North Africa—Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. As it has for the broader Middle East and North Africa region, labor migration has played a central role in shaping these four countries’ social and economic development. While there are larger migrant sending regions in the world, on a per capita basis as well as in share of GDP, worker remittances to North Africa are among the highest in the world.

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