Middle East and North Africa

Ready to launch: The World Association of PPP Units & PPP Professionals

There is hardly a government today that does not consider some sort of public-private partnership (PPP) to be relevant and integral to its development strategy.

Everywhere you go now, there are individuals and institutions dealing with PPP policy and all the complex aspects of tendering, implementing, and supervising PPP projects. A specialization has arisen, which has become a career for many people and an industry for many institutions, public and private.

Egypt’s Sanitation Program for Results (PforR): achieving results on the ground

Co-authors:

Osama Hamad, Lead Water Supply & Sanitation Specialist, World Bank Water Global Practice
Heba Yaken Aref Ahmed, Operations Analyst, World Bank Water Global Practice
Sara Mohamed Mahmoud Aly Soliman, Consultant, World Bank Water Global Practice

In a rural area about 60 miles north of Cairo lies the town of Toukh El Aqlam, situated on Egypt’s busy Cairo-Alexandria agricultural road. The region has long-suffered from a lack of sanitation services, creating a serious impact on the health and social development of its inhabitants. On October 16^th, 2018, the World Bank’s Program for Results (PforR) team and representatives from Egypt’s Ministry of Housing visited Toukh El Aqlam, where 30,000 citizens now benefit from 5,000 new sanitation connections in rural Dakahliya governorate.

The Dakahliya Water and Sanitation Company (WSC) is one of three WSCs participating in the World Bank-supported Sustainable Rural Sanitation Services Program (SRSSP), along with Beheira and Sharkiya. Approved by the Bank in July 2015, the Program is already delivering results on the ground in its efforts to achieve sustainable access to sanitation services, reduce water pollution in the Nile Delta, and improve water sector governance.

Tunisia: Solid Social Safety Net Programs for Stronger Human Capital

School in Douar Hicher – Tunis, Tunisia.

As one of the forerunners of the World Bank’s new Human Capital Project, Tunisia was one of the six countries that presented their vision for human capital development at the World Bank Annual Meetings held October 10 – 11 in Bali, Indonesia.

Introducing the online guide to the World Development Indicators: A new way to discover data on development

The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank’s premier compilation of international statistics on global development. Drawing from officially recognized sources and including national, regional, and global estimates, the WDI provides access to almost 1,600 indicators for 217 economies, with some time series extending back more than 50 years. The database helps users—analysts, policymakers, academics, and all those curious about the state of the world—to find information related to all aspects of development, both current and historical.

An annual World Development Indicators report was available in print or PDF format until last year. This year, we introduce the World Development Indicators website: a new discovery tool and storytelling platform for our data which takes users behind the scenes with information about data coverage, curation, and methodologies. The goal is to provide a useful, easily accessible guide to the database and make it easy for users to discover what type of indicators are available, how they’re collected, and how they can be visualized to analyze development trends.

So, what can you do on the new World Development Indicators website?

1. Explore available indicators by theme

The indicators in the WDI are organized according to six thematic areas: Poverty and Inequality, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links. Each thematic page provides an overview of the type of data available, a list of featured indicators, and information about widely used methodologies and current data challenges.

Addressing Child Malnutrition in Yemen: Muneera's story

“We had lost hope,” said Muneera’s father. “As her health deteriorated and her body weakened, we worried that she could not last much longer.” Six months short of her fourth birthday, Muneera was suffering the effects of malnutrition, which had put her life in danger. Though she lived near Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, Muneera’s family did not have the resources to take her for medical care. Like thousands of other children in Yemen, the deteriorating conditions due to ongoing instability had led to malnutrition.

2018 Dubai MENA PPP Forum: Key takeaways

Against a milieu of changing PPP enabling environments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a public-private partnership (PPP) forum took place last month in Dubai focusing on anchoring partnerships and unlocking the potential of PPPs in delivering the national visions that will drive MENA’s future economic growth.

Young Moroccan professionals make it to the German tourism job market

Young man on the phone - pathdoc l shuterstock.com

Many of us move in circles where we take our mobility across borders for granted. The pull of a better education or a higher paying job has taken so many of us far away from home. Beyond our personal experiences, at the World Bank we’ve made the case on the benefits of greater mobility and we’re walking the talk. Using economist’s jargon of “improving resource allocation,” “matching supply and demand,” or “responding to economic and demographic forces,” we want to demonstrate that mobility can be a potent instrument to unlock prosperity, alleviate unemployment, and boost investment in building the human capital.

A BAD Conference

Last week, I attended a conference at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. It was BAD, and it was primarily about gender. (By BAD, I of course mean it was about “Behavioral Approaches to Diversity”.) The topic is obviously relevant to World Bank goals, both internally and for our clients, and to the work of the Mind, Behavior, and Development Unit (eMBeD). Here are some selected highlights.

Addressing uncertainty in conflict-affected environments: Lessons from Yemen

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is.” This quote is attributed to the mathematician Jean Allen Paulos but could also capture the feeling of development practitioners trying to find ways to effectively support people and institutions in countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV).

The UN and the World Bank working together in crisis-affected situations

Creating sustainable peace and development solutions for countries affected by conflict, crisis and violence is a global responsibility for the international community.

At the United Nations General Assembly this week, the UN and the World Bank, together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched the Famine Action Mechanism (FAM), the first global partnership dedicated to preventing famine. With support from the world’s leading tech companies, the FAM aims to use data and state-of-the-art technology to pair decision-makers with better, earlier famine warnings and pre-arranged financing. Our work on the FAM is the latest example of how our organizations are joining forces to reduce the risk of global crises.

Middle East and North Africa

1. Explore available indicators by theme

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