Topic - Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Heavy dependence on imported cereals, combined with climate change, water scarcity and geopolitical uncertainty, continues to threaten food resilience across MENA. This column explains how an inclusive trade policy can play a key role in making the region’s food security less vulnerable to shocks.

Digitalisation, global value chains and regional integration in MENA & SSA

Participation in global value chains is vital for countries pursuing structural transformation and inclusive economic development. This column summarises new evidence on how much production processes have been globalised in Africa and the Middle East relative to other regions; whether this process has taken place with partners within or outside the region; and whether it has taken place more in manufacturing or services.

Financing Lebanon’s Reconstruction: A Compact for Finance, Governance, and Accountability

As Lebanon embarks on another round of reconstruction, the key question is not how much financing can be mobilised, but whether each commitment is linked to a verified need, involves a transparent procurement process, is linked to clearly defined executing and operating institutions, and is based on a liability that is in line with the state’s ability to repay. This column proposes an operational mechanism for establishing that connection: a Reconstruction Finance and Accountability Compact.

The risks of a two-speed AI economy in MENA

Much of the debate about artificial intelligence in the Middle East and North Africa focuses on how many jobs it will replace. As this column explains, the more important challenge is that the new technology is likely to create a two-speed labour market, where countries with the capacity to invest in digital infrastructure and skills move rapidly ahead while others struggle to keep pace. Unless governments combine credible national reforms with targeted regional cooperation, AI could widen, not reduce, the economic divides across MENA.

Sanctions and conflict: why corruption changes the equation

Why do sanctions produce such different political outcomes across the countries that have been targeted? This column reports research examining the role of pre-existing corruption in shaping the relationship between sanctions and subsequent conflict or political instability. The evidence indicates that trade sanctions are associated with higher conflict-related deaths where pre-existing corruption is high.

The weak bread chain: cereal supply risks in six MENA economies

The Middle East and North Africa is one of the most food-import-dependent regions of the world, particularly for staple cereals such as barley, maize and wheat, and particularly in six countries – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. As this column reports, diversifying import sources has become an essential strategy for strengthening food security and improving resilience to geopolitical and climate-related disruptions.

From mega-investment to mega-productivity: closing MENA’s conversion gap

Across the Middle East and North Africa, governments are investing heavily in infrastructure, technology, diversification and new industries. Yet capital accumulation alone does not guarantee productivity growth. As this column argues, the region’s deeper challenge is its ‘investment-to-productivity conversion gap’: ensuring that large-scale investment translates consistently into stronger firms, technological diffusion, skills and better jobs. A different metric of success is required: not how much capital is deployed, but how much productive capability that capital leaves behind.

Why energy efficiency still struggles to attract finance in Egypt

Egypt has reduced energy subsidies and gradually adjusted domestic energy prices toward cost-recovery levels, improving the economic case for energy efficiency investments – but financing has not kept pace. Drawing on structured interviews with banks, developers and public officials, this column traces why energy efficiency projects in the country still struggle to attract capital, and sets out how a ‘financing ladder’ used elsewhere – from revolving funds to risk guarantees to green bonds – could close the gap.

Iran is still selling oil. But can it replace tomorrow’s barrels?

Iran’s oil exports have not disappeared, but continued sales may hide a deeper vulnerability. Arash Irani argues that selling barrels already in the logistics system is not the same as generating new export flows, and proposes five indicators to help policymakers judge whether trade under disruption is sustainable or merely running down its stocks.

The political economy of turning AI adoption into firm productivity in MENA

Generative AI can make individual tasks faster without making firms more productive. This column argues that across the Middle East and North Africa, turning AI adoption into better performance depends on organisational capabilities and on agreements within firms over authority, workloads and rewards. Public support can help by financing those capabilities through transparent selection, milestone-based assistance and independent evaluation.

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