Resources

North African economies are characterized by slow economic diversification and persistent unemployment, especially among educated youth. Labour productivity has registered only a moderate increase compared with more dynamic emerging countries like India or Turkey. These patterns share a common origin, which lies in the existence of many distortions in the economy that prevent an efficient allocation of resources between firms and sectors. These…

The first ESCWA Award on Advancing Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women was presented by Ms. Rima Khalaf, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), to three staff members. The award is delivered for the first time and constitutes a milestone for ESCWA, which is integrating gender perspectives in its plans, policies and programmes. At a ceremony held…

A decade marked for accelerated action and delivery towards sustainable development has been disrupted by a global health threat that has severely impacted the Arab region. The focus now is on urgent action to save lives and repair livelihoods. This crisis is a stark reminder of why an efficient and effective public sector is the first line of defence in addressing systemic risks. This perilous pandemic is spreading through the Arab region at a…

Signed by 52 African countries, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is, by the number of participating countries, the largest trade agreement since the formation of the WTO. By 1 April 2019, only one year and ten days after the signature, the threshold of ratification by 22 countries required for the agreement’s entry into force had been reached. The speed of this ratification is unprecedented in African Union history.​ With so…

Laws and regulations related to access to information and openness are very important for the implementation of open government principles. These laws cover several areas, such as access to information, protection of personal data, citizen participation and anti-corruption. However, the access information law is the basis and core stone for open government. The adoption of this law, and its implementation are of great importance for launching…

Building on the findings of the Arab Sustainable Development Report 2020 (ASDR 2020), the first in the region to offer a quantitative and qualitative analysis of all 17 SDGs, ESCWA and the WHO EMRO are jointly organizing a high-level discussion in collaboration with UNICEF and UNFPA on:   - What is COVID-19 telling us about the region’s progress on SDG 3 and efforts to ensure the health and well-being of 430+ million people in the Arab world…

An understanding of the nature of economic growth is a central preoccupation of the present report. A pertinent analysis of economic growth is found in the work by Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, in which Gordon points out an often forgotten fact: that economic growth is neither steady nor continuous (Gordon, 2016). When growth occurs (or declines), therefore, it is essential that policymakers, researchers and analysts…