The MENA Concessional Financing Facility was launched in April 2016 through a partnership between the World Bank Group, United Nations, and Islamic Development Bank Group and since it has made rapid progress in providing urgent support to help Jordan and Lebanon address the impact of Syrian refugees.

Education is usually seen as a route for improving people’s employment opportunities, but this hasn’t proven the case in many developing countries. As the World Bank’s 2013 World Development Report highlighted.  

The demographic clock is ticking on both sides of the Mediterranean – from an aging workforce on one end to a workforce surplus on the other. Yet whatever the demographic dynamics, the Mediterranean space is facing an incredible challenge: providing a safe, buoyant and prosperous future for its youth which would benefit its societies, their...

I have been looking for possible sources of investment and possible markets that would help both Syrian refugees and their host communities, and, as someone who has worked on the subject of the private sector for two decades now, one of my first questions is—“what role can the diaspora play?”   Continue reading the article on the World Bank...

Transportation has direct impact on the economy, the environment and people’s mobility. On one hand, the air quality is getting worse and there is pollution due to vehicle emissions resulted from the increasing fuel consumption. On the other hand, the large number of people working in places far away from their residence directly affect traffic...

Eight years after the global financial crisis, policy makers around the Mediterranean are to various degrees still grappling with restoring adequate financing to the real economy. Employment, particularly for young graduates and women, has become the defining real economy issue around the Mediterranean. Given this challenge, central banks and...

For so long, celebrating Tunisia usually went hand in hand with celebrating its youth. “Tunisian youth were rather the solution and not the problem” this was the slogan communicated throughout the Ben Ali tenure. The ousted president made youth-leveraging as his personal brand.   Over twenty years of branding and marketing to hide the ugly...

Five years after its political revolution, Tunisia’s government has acknowledged economic challenges, including a lack of foreign investment and a high unemployment rate. Many Tunisians call for a second revolution, this time for economic opportunities, including entrepreneurship and the employment it creates. Although being an entrepreneur in...

The World Bank Group’s latest MENA Economic Monitor argues that given the persistent impact of the civil war on the Syrian society, and while full-scale reconstruction may have to wait for peace before it can start, development institutions can commit to support an ambitious and inclusive reconstruction strategy that might in itself foster peace....