Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Robert P. Beschel Jr.

Author

Robert P. Beschel Jr.
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Brookings Doha Center

Robert P. Beschel Jr. is currently a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Doha Center, where his research interests concentrate on governance and public sector reform throughout the Middle East and North Africa region. He is helping to oversee the Center’s work on the policy and institutional responses to Covid-19. Previously Beschel served as Chair of the World Bank’s Center of Government (COG) Practice and Lead Public Sector Management Specialist within the Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region. He has written and worked extensively on economic and public sector reform issues in a diverse number of countries in the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. In 2010, he was recruited by the Office of Tony Blair and the Government of Kuwait and served as the Director for Policy in the newly created Technical and Advisory Office (TAO) of the Prime Minister.

Content by this Author

Public sector reform in MENA: the achievable governance revolution

Across the Middle East and North Africa, there are countries working to modernise state institutions to make them more efficient, effective and responsive. This column argues that while it is common for Arab governments to look elsewhere for reform ideas, there is a wealth of experience within the region that practitioners should consider. Lessons from public sector reform in MENA from the past two decades suggest that transformative change is possible.

The Middle East and North Africa and Covid-19: gearing up for the long haul

The global pandemic is likely to affect the Middle East and North Africa directly for several years to come and indirectly for even longer. Yet as this Brookings column argues, countries in the region can emerge both better able to prevent such disasters in the future and with a set of more agile and responsive institutions that will help them to tackle other pernicious development challenges.

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Empowering Egypt’s young people for the future of work

Egypt’s most urgent priority is creating more and better jobs for its growing youth population. This column reports on the first Development Dialogue, an ERF–World Bank joint initiative, which brought together students, scholars, policy-makers and private sector leaders at Cairo University to confront the country’s labour market challenge. The conversation explored why youth inclusion matters, what the data show and how dialogue and the forthcoming Country Economic Memorandum can inform practical pathways to accelerate job creation.

Preparing youth for the workforce of the future

As economies undergo rapid digital and green transformations, young people face a growing mismatch between their skills and what the modern labour market needs. This column argues that enabling youth to compete in the workforce of the future requires systemic reforms in education, skills formation and labour market institutions, especially in developing economies.

Connectivity and conflict: understanding the risks of inequality in the Middle East

While high inequality does not always lead to conflict, new research reported in this column shows that widespread internet access acts as a catalyst, transforming economic grievances into political instability. For policy-makers in the Middle East and North Africa, this means that as digital connectivity expands, the security costs of ignoring economic disparities rise dramatically. The combination of idle youth, high inequality and high-speed internet is a volatile mix.

The political economy of stalled structural reforms in MENA

There is a persistent pattern to the structural reforms that are required to underpin economic progress in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa: ambitious strategies are announced and partially implemented, but ultimately they are diluted or reversed. This column argues that the repeated stalling of reform is not primarily a failure of economic design. Rather, it reflects deep-seated political economy constraints rooted in rent dependence, elite bargaining and weak institutional credibility. Without addressing these underlying dynamics, reform efforts are likely to remain symbolic rather than transformative.

Closing the gender gap in political participation in MENA

Women across the Middle East and North Africa participate less than men in politics – not only in political parties and elections, but also in petitions, boycotts, protests and strikes. This column reports evidence from ten countries showing that differences in education, employment and political attitudes explain part of this disparity, yet a significant gender gap remains.




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