By Hannah Linnemann*   The blog reports our findings and discoveries from field site visits to schools in Jordan that were conducted from March 17 – March 21 as part of the World Bank Group's regional engagement on governance in social service delivery in the Middle East and North Africa Region. The team consisted of Jumana Alaref (MNSSP), Hannah ...

By Manal Quota*   Zeid Bin Haritha is a school in the Jordanian village of Yarqa. In this school, you’ll witness tiny overcrowded classrooms, old broken furniture and over-worked teachers. These are characteristics common across a number of schools in the Governorate of Al-Salt. But, wait! This is not a tragic story filled with heart breaking...

The European Investment Bank (EIB) through the Centre for Mediterranean Integration (CMI), in collaboration with ISESCO and UN-ESCWA Technology Center, organized a regional experts’ meeting on the 19th  and 20th  November 2014 at the League of The Arab States (LAS) in Cairo, Egypt. This meeting aimed to initiate and develop an innovation...

Ankara, Turkey   The CMI and the EIB, in collaboration with the ISESCO and the UN-ESCWA Technology Centre, are organising a regional workshop about the contribution of the Quadruple Helix actors to knowledge transfer within Science and Technology Parks (STPs) on June 16th-18th, 2014 in Ankara, Turkey.   ODTÜ Teknokent, a Science Park that...

The last two decades have witnessed a strong push for more university autonomy around the globe, paired with a request for higher education institutions to be accountable not only to those directly involved– the academic community, students and their families – but also the wider public. As such, the topic of quality assurance has played a...

With newspaper headlines focused on violence and  political upheavals across the Middle East and North Africa region, it is easy  to forget that an annual beginning is also underway. Children from the Mashreq  to the Maghreb have started going back to school. Parents are buying school  supplies for little ones and millions of teenagers are going...

The EU-funded FP7 bilateral project EU-Tunisia ETC (European Tunisian Cooperation) a network for the coordination of science and technology cooperation, organized an EU-Med conference event in Tunis which brought together experts, policy makers, and practitioners in research and innovation to reflect on and analyze innovation support mechanisms...

The event was jointly organized with the Egyptian Ministry of Scientific Research and partners such as the EIB and ISESCO. As a follow-up to a request from the Egyptian Ministry of Scientific Research, the objective was to organize a consultation and workshop on ways to move ahead on a knowledge and innovation–based strategy for Egypt with...

Anuja Utz, CMI Task Team Leader and main contributor to the report said its approach reflects the rich differences in challenges and opportunities across the MENA region. “Given the diversity of the Arab world, the study does not provide a cookie-cutter approach.” she said. “It offers examples of good practice from countries around the world and...

Egypt, Lebanon and Morocco have expressed interest in joining the WAVES Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) initiative. They are among the first countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to consider natural capital accounting as a means to encourage green growth, poverty reduction and job creation. These countries, along with...

  This blog is part of a weekly series that we hope will provide some food for thought on the critical questions outlined in the forthcoming MENA Flagship Report on Jobs.   High unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) largely reflects the growth deficit.  While China has been growing at 10 percent for a decade and has unemployment...