Economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa has been weak since the global financial crisis of 2007-09 and the Arab Spring of the early 2010s – in large part due to a stagnant private sector. The joint chapeau report “Unlocking Sustainable Private Sector Growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)” by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank (WB) explores what can be done to support sustainable growth in the private sector.
The studies underpinning the new report draw on data from EBRD-EIB-WBG Enterprise Survey in MENA conducted between late 2018 and 2020, largely before Covid-19, of over 5,800 registered firms across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, West Bank and Gaza. Although the data largely predate the pandemic, they remain extremely relevant as they offer a precise snapshot of the more structural features and weaknesses of the business environment. Resilience to the new shocks – and capacity to react – are likely to be affected by those structural features.
