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 PDF Author: The World Bank
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781464817762
Category : Africa, North
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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 USD 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.

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 PDF Author: The World Bank
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781464817762
Category : Africa, North
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
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 USD 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.

COVID-19 Learning Losses

COVID-19 Learning Losses PDF Author: UNESCO
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
ISBN: 9231004948
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
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.

The Upside of Digital for the Middle East and North Africa

The Upside of Digital for the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Ana Paula Cusolito
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781464816635
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Digital transformation can yield large socio-economic gains, in terms of increased growth in GDP, sector activity, and jobs. Widespread use of digital tools significantly reduces costs, rendering economic activity more productive.

Reluctant Reception

Reluctant Reception PDF Author: Kelsey P. Norman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108842364
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
An original, comparative analysis of the politics of asylum seeking and migration in the Middle East and North Africa, using Egypt, Morocco and Turkey to explore why, and for what gain, host states treat migrants and refugees with indifference.

The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa

The COVID-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Anis Ben Brik
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000653692
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This book critically reflects on the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by exploring the impact and possible future outcomes in a region already struggling with the effects of a decade of uprisings, failed or difficult political transitions, state collapses, civil war and international conflict. International scholars offer a comprehensive treatment of today's major societal issues and provide a unique, broadly comparative view on public policy responses in the MENA region. Addressing the implications and public policy responses to the crisis, they bring a critical perspective to the emerging challenges of evidence-based policy making; the locus of authority in transnational issues; the nature of governance; and the role of government and implications for civil society. Tackling the psychology, sociology, education, law, and public policy issues related to the social and economic implications of the COVID 19 pandemic, this book will be of interest to scholars and students alike.

Decolonizing Memory

Decolonizing Memory PDF Author: Jill Jarvis
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478021411
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The magnitude of the legal violence exercised by the French to colonize and occupy Algeria (1830–1962) is such that only aesthetic works have been able to register its enduring effects. In Decolonizing Memory Jill Jarvis examines the power of literature to provide what demographic data, historical facts, and legal trials have not in terms of attesting to and accounting for this destruction. Taking up the unfinished work of decolonization since 1962, Algerian writers have played a crucial role in forging historical memory and nurturing political resistance—their work helps to make possible what state violence has rendered almost unthinkable. Drawing together readings of multilingual texts by Yamina Mechakra, Waciny Laredj, Zahia Rahmani, Fadhma Aïth Mansour Amrouche, Assia Djebar, and Samira Negrouche alongside theoretical, juridical, visual, and activist texts from both Algeria’s national liberation war (1954–1962) and war on civilians (1988–1999), this book challenges temporal and geographical frameworks that have implicitly organized studies of cultural memory around Euro-American reference points. Jarvis shows how this literature rewrites history, disputes state authority to arbitrate justice, and cultivates a multilingual archive for imagining decolonized futures.

The Global Findex Database 2017

The Global Findex Database 2017 PDF Author: Asli Demirguc-Kunt
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464812683
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
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.

Public Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa

Public Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Robert P. Beschel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815736983
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
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.

State-Owned Enterprises in Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia: Size, Costs, and Challenges

State-Owned Enterprises in Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia: Size, Costs, and Challenges PDF Author: Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513594087
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.

Entrepreneurial Rise in the Middle East and North Africa

Entrepreneurial Rise in the Middle East and North Africa PDF Author: Stavros Sindakis
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 180071517X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Entrepreneurial Rise in the Middle East and North Africa: The Influence of Quadruple Helix on Technological Innovation explores the relationships and inter-dependencies between innovation, political regimes, and economic and social development throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.