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CONCEPT – THE MENA REGION
Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment
- INTRODUCTION : The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is vast, rapidly transforming and heterogeneous. Since 2011, the region has experienced an eruption of conflict in several Arab countries. What was termed the “Arab Spring” led to a series of wars and conflict in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Domestic strife and foreign intervention have led to “failed states” across the region (Müller et al. 2016, Kinsman 2016). This report provides an analysis of underlying material risks and opportunities that contributed to the Arab uprisings. Two of the key issues that have been and will continue to face the MENA region are demographic change and economic factors. Despite the many shared features among MENA countries, there is comparatively little regional integration or policy coordination on joint demographic and economic policies in comparison with many other regions.
- DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS : From the 1950s, many states across the region have pursued state-led models of development, supported by substantial public investment and often populist social policies (Cammett et al. 2015). State efforts to extend social welfare provisions, improved per capita physician ratios and life-expectancy, and declining maternal and infant mortality rates helped lead to half a century of rapid population expansion. Other countries, such as Israel and the Gulf states, saw rapid rates of migration from within the region and from Europe, North America and South Asia. However, from the mid-1960s, most countries across the region went through a “demographic transition” (see Gillis et al. 1992), where TFR began to decline, in part related to increased levels of education, family planning, urbanisation and shifting patterns of migration.
- ABSOLUTE POPULATION SIZE : The total population of the MENA region has increased fivefold since the 1950s, from just under 110 million in 1950 to 569 million in 2017 (UNDESA 2017). Despite generally declining rates of fertility, absolute population numbers are expected to further double to over 1 billion inhabitants by 2100, according to medium variant projections. By the end of the century, therefore, there will be more people in the MENA region than in China, whose population is expected to continue to shrink to just over 1 billion; and more than in Europe, the population of which is expected to recede by approximately 10 percent by 2100.
- ECONOMIC FACTORS :
- Since population growth is dramatically changing the region, one of the most pressing challenges for internal and external policymakers is to address economic opportunities and risks. The economic challenges in the region have been described as full of “superlatives” because “its workforce has grown at the fastest annual rate in the world (2.7% in the past 10 years)” and youth unemployment is also the highest in the world standing “at around 25% of the population” (Dashti 2015).
- Thanks to a century of exploiting hydrocarbons as its primary asset, the region has seen significant economic development. At the same time hydrocarbons have led to a “rentier state” economic model in large parts of the region. In this system, the economy relies mostly on external rents such as oil and gas revenues as opposed to a strong domestic productive sector. Another feature is that only a small number of the working population is needed to generate rents. Government plays the key role in distributing these external rents, allowing little room for a private sector to thrive (Beblawi and Luciani 1987). Rents derived from energy exports are used to subsidize food, energy and medical services to a varying degree across the region. The key rentier states are Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Libya and Algeria, because they possess the largest hydrocarbon endowment. However, even in countries without much in the way of resources such as Syria, Egypt or Lebanon, the effect of the rentier states in the GCC has been felt, owing to remittances. This model also impacts on the dynamism of economies, which are effectively run by the older generation since few people in the economy are needed to maintain this system (Al-Ghwell 2015). As a result of this system, youth inclusion in economic and political activity is low, and this is one of the most significant challenges in the contemporary MENA region (UNDP 2016).
- TEN TAKE-AWAY MESSAGES ABOUT THE DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC PROSPECTS OF THE MENA REGION
- MENA’s population will be double that of Europe by 2100, with more than 1billion people.
- MENA’s population will be bigger than China’s by 2100.
- The demographic trend in the MENA region is towards a gradually ageing society.
- The majority of MENA countries are resource-poor and labour-abundant.
- Youth unemployment is one of the key economic challenges in the MENA region.
- MENA economies are still not sufficiently diversified.
- Moving away from exploiting oil and gas resources to industrial development holds great opportunities.
- Public debt levels are increasing in resource-poor and labour-abundant economies.
- MENA economies need greater investment in STEM subject skills (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to prepare the younger generation for labour market demands.
- The demographic and economic perspective of MENA is challenging, but there is also a “demographic dividend” if policies are steered towards economic inclusion of the younger gen.
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