Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa Region

Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa Region
Author: Johannes G. Hoogeveen
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2021-12-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464817774

COVID-19 is one of multiple crises to have hit the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the decade following the Arab Spring. War, oil price declines, economic slowdowns, and now a pandemic are tearing at the social fabric of a region characterized by high rates of unemployment, high levels of informality, and low annual economic growth. The economic costs of the pandemic are estimated at about US$227 billion, and fiscal support packages across MENA are averaging 2.7 percent of GDP, putting pressure on already weak fiscal balances and making a quick recovery challenging. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, MENA was the only region in the world experiencing increases in poverty and declines in life satisfaction. Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in the Middle East and North Africa Region investigates how COVID-19 changed the welfare of individuals and households in the region. It does so by relying on phone surveys implemented across the region and complements these with microsimulation exercises to assess the impact of COVID-19 on jobs, income, poverty, and inequality. The two approaches complement and corroborate each other's results, thereby making the findings more robust and richer. This report's results show that, in the short run, poverty rates in MENA will increase significantly and inequality will widen. A group of 'new poor' is likely to emerge that may have difficulty recovering from the economic consequences of COVID-19. The report adds value by analyzing newly gathered primary data, along with projections based on newly modeled micro- and macrosimulations, and by identifying key issues that policy makers should focus on to enable a quick, inclusive, and sustained economic recovery.

Arab MENA Countries: Vulnerabilities and Constraints Against Democracy on the Eve of the Global COVID-19 Crisis

Arab MENA Countries: Vulnerabilities and Constraints Against Democracy on the Eve of the Global COVID-19 Crisis
Author: Hussein Solomon
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2020-12-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9811570477

This book offers readers critical insights into a region in crisis and explores different facets of the crisis from governance to gender to the politics of identity, the challenge of the environment and the enduring impact of demographic variables and technological change. Whilst exploring the nature of the crises, the book also explores how policy-makers have responded to these and what other alternatives there are in overcoming challenges posed. Whilst the focus is on the Middle East North Africa region as a whole, the authors are well aware of the unique characteristics of individual countries. Hence the book examines regional trends whilst also being conscious of the national specificities of each country. In combining the general with the particular, the book approaches its subject matter from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective allowing one to understand regional trends and country specific peculiarities.

COVID-19 Learning Losses

COVID-19 Learning Losses
Author: UNESCO
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2021-12-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9231004948

Since the beginning of the pandemic, efforts have been made to monitor both school closures (and re-opening) and the measures put in place to ensure continuity of learning. These include the Survey of Ministries of Education on National Responses to COVID-19, jointly supported by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank. However, to date, no systematic evidence has been available on how students' learning is being affected by the disruptions caused by the pandemic or on the impact of education response measures initiated by governments. This report contributes to filling this evidence gap and includes a series of simulations of potential learning losses due to COVID-19 and exploration of their longer-term implications. The analysis is based on the Enabling learning for all framework, which outlines access, engagement and enabling environment as the three crucial enablers for learning, while the simulation assumptions are informed by the evidence on school closures and governments' education-related responses, collected through the joint survey.

Public Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa

Public Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa
Author: Robert P. Beschel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815736983

Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive—and often corrupt—governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.

Iran Reconsidered

Iran Reconsidered
Author: Suzanne Maloney
Publisher: Geopolitics in the 21st Centur
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2021-01-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780815728245

The Islamic Republic has been struggling to reform itself for 25 years and each time the experiment has gone awry. Iran's revolutionary theocracy has evolved, but the most problematic aspects of its ideology and institutions have managed to endure since 1979. Can the Iran Nuclear Deal, an agreement crafted through intense dialogue with an old adversary, alter the essence of the Islamic Republic and its turbulent relationship with the world? In Iran Reconsidered: The Nuclear Deal and the Quest for a New Moderation Suzanne Maloney argues that the nature of the Islamic Republic amplifies the threat posed by its nuclear ambitions and animates the most tenacious opponents of the deal. For that reason, the fierce debate that has erupted in Washington over the deal hinges on the prognosis for Iran's future.

The MENA Region and COVID-19

The MENA Region and COVID-19
Author: Zeina Hobaika
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2022-05-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000614670

Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which comprises some of the world’s richest countries next to some of the poorest, this book offers excellent insights into the discriminatory consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a geographic focus on the MENA region, the multidisciplinary case studies collected in this edited volume reveal that the coronavirus’s impact patterns are a question of two variables: governance performance and socioeconomic potency. Given the global, unprecedented, complex, and systemic nature of COVID-19 – and its long-term implications for societies, governments, international organisations, citizens and corporations – this volume entails a relevance to regions undergoing similar dynamics. Analyses in the book, therefore, have implications for the comparative study of the pandemic and its impact on societies around the globe. Understanding related dynamics and implications, and making use of lessons learned, are a pathway to deal with future similar crises. Questions covered in the volume are relevant to geopolitics, social implications and the relations between political leaders and citizens as beings embedded in various strategies of communication. The volume will appeal to scholars of international politics, political science, risk or crisis governance, economics and sociology, human rights and security, political communication and public health. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial- No Derivatives 4.0 licence.

The Global Findex Database 2017

The Global Findex Database 2017
Author: Asli Demirguc-Kunt
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464812683

In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

Opening Doors

Opening Doors
Author: The World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-02-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0821397648

The report analyzes key challenges for improving gender equality in the MENA region and provides policy priorities that Governments could consider to address these challenges. By and large the critical areas are in improving economic and political participation of females.

Renewable Energy Desalination

Renewable Energy Desalination
Author: Bekele Debele Negewo
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2012-09-26
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0821394576

The book looks at water availability and water demand in various sectors till 2050, presenting a methodology to prioritize options both on the demand and on the supply side, with a special focus on renewable energy desalination.

Forced Migrations and Refugees in the Mediterranean Basin and the MENA Region

Forced Migrations and Refugees in the Mediterranean Basin and the MENA Region
Author: Laura Westra
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2021
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781536194715

"In the past migrations opened the world to knowledge, science, and understanding among peoples, but increasingly migrants are viewed with disfavour and even hate, especially in the Mediterranean Basin and the MENA Region. I had published with two other scholars a book intended to promote the rights of migrants in 2015, but today the situation has become so much worse, particularly in our chosen area, that I believe the time has come to re-examine the situation. A number of issues conspire to render the fate of migrants truly desperate, as they are forced to leave their lands that, due to the increasingly grave effects of climate change, can no longer feed and support them and their families, while the ongoing conflicts in the area render their situation truly unlivable. In addition, in the last few years, extreme right-wing political parties in Europe have conspired to treat people of different colour, ethnicity, or religion as unworthy of the respect due to all human beings. In 2019 a further disaster struck the whole world, a pandemic that imposed particularly harsh conditions to migrants, who were clearly unable to practice social distance and who found themselves in situations where testing, medicines and even sufficient food and water were not available. There are important aspects of this work that have global applications beyond the focus area we have chosen, such as the spread of racism, the fostering of conflicts to advance the interests of powerful countries, the dangerous spread of populism with fascist tendencies, and the spread of imperialism. Most of all, there is a lesson to be learned: walls to exclude and separate people provide no solutions for any of the grave problems we all face. Such problems can be solved all together or not at all; what is needed is a concentrated effort to acknowledge our need for each other, as only a belief in the true brotherhood of all can help"--