Morocco: Conference on Employment and Development in developing countries

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Objectives

The intent is to provide an opportunity for development economists and policymakers to interact and comment on important development issues. The aim is also to bridge these two communities in hope of improving both research and policymaking for labor markets in developing countries.

Organizing the third annual conference in Morocco aims at accelerating the momentum and making this research and policy forum more accessible to networks in developing countries, especially in the region of North Africa and the Middle East. This conference follows up on the successful previous conferences held in Berlin in 2006 and in Bonn in 2007.

Context of the conference

Recent economic and social transformations have put developing countries on higher and more sustainable growth paths. In too many cases, however, poor labor market conditions still lead to high unemployment, poor working conditions, low wages and increased inequality and exclusion.

Labor is often the only asset of the poor and a growth process that is not associated with job creation may therefore fail to reduce poverty. A well functioning labor market can be a key for an environment where new firms are created and private agents find the proper incentives to invest and innovate.

Sound labor policies that promote the creation of more and better jobs are needed:

• To guarantee the success of structural reforms,
• To maintain the social support for those reforms, and
• To ensure that the benefits are widely distributed.

Achieving these targets is crucial to an effective implementation of poverty-reduction strategies and, hence, progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. Current policy debates are beginning to focus more on these topics.

Labor Market, Job Creation and Growth program

Against this background, the World Bank has developed a proposal for an operationally-oriented research program on “Labor Market, Job Creation and Growth”. The proposal has been advanced in discussions with the research community, other international organizations (such as ILO) and bilateral aid organizations in Europe, America and Asia.

To move the proposed research agenda forward, IZA and the World Bank launched a new IZA research area on Employment and Development in 2006.
This program aims to assist the international research community in addressing research priorities related to employment and development, including those identified by the World Bank:

• Diagnosis of labor market conditions and vulnerability in middle and low income countries;
• Links between the business environment, labor demand and poverty reduction;
• Benefits/costs of structural reforms and globalization for workers;
• Causes and consequences of formality and informality;
• Effects of labor market policy and institutions;
• Best practices in skills development and skills upgrading;
• International migration and labor markets in origin and host countries.