Lebanon is a typical example of a country where the banking sector is stable with high levels of liquidity, and where the government has put in place various incentive mechanisms and programs to encourage lending for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These include subsidized interest...

Knowledge has always been central to development. A thousand years ago the Arab civilization led the world in knowledge, prosperity, and development. More generally, the Arab world is currently undergoing a transition on three fronts: 1) a political transition, which seeks to replace...

The Arab Spring and subsequent transitions provide opportunities for better governance, economies free of cronyism and more inclusive models of growth. Social Safety Nets (SSN) will be a key component of building more inclusive economies and societies. And here too there are grounds for...

The Joint Social and Economic Assessment (JSEA) has been prepared in response to a request from the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC) in Yemen, and was undertaken jointly by the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, and the Islamic Development Bank. The...

The World Bank's 2010 study, Arab Development Assistance: four decades of cooperation, and the subsequent note, Arab donors respond favorably to the global financial crisis (Rouis 2011), showed that the three Gulf countries - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have provided...

While many governments in the Arab world have undertaken some privatizations since the early 1990s, many retain surprisingly large portfolios of fully, majority, or minority state-owned enterprises (SOEs). As in other parts of the world, privatization often causes concerns among citizens....

Innovation is often touted as a key component in unleashing private sector growth and the dynamism necessary for solving the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region's employment challenges. The region's innovation strategy identifies the major development challenges including youth...

This quick note is based on the report of the same name which was prepared just prior to the Arab Spring. The study anticipates the demands for social and economic inclusion articulated by Moroccan young people, especially February 2011. Since then, these demands have been amplified and reached...

While it will require further political stability and security, tourism in Iraq stands to be a major growth sector. The Iraqi tourism sector is currently underdeveloped and in a state of neglect, due to decades of war, closed regimes and recurrent instability and insecurity. However, as Iraq...

The process of political change and transition across much of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) continued into 2013, with a great degree of heterogeneity across countries. Violence in Syria has escalated, with spillover effects to Lebanon and Jordan. Security in Yemen is fragile but a...