Employment creation through industrial policy in the Middle East and North Africa
Summary Report on the International Workshop “Employment Creation through Industrial Policy in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Countries”
Lack of productive employment is one of the most pressing challenges of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). No other region in the world has such high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Policy makers across the region are extremely concerned about the problem but have not yet been able to identify an effective strategy to address it. Many academic publications and donor reports focus only on the labour market rather than on what is happening on the production side of the economy. In addition, there is an emerging literature stressing the need of new industrial policies in the MENA region. Very few of these, however, focus on employment creation and promotion as a distinct goal of industrial policies.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has therefore commissioned the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) to bring international experts for industrial and labour market policies in the MENA together for a workshop and discuss what industrial policies in MENA should look like in order to generate employment that is sustainable, decent and productive. The workshop has taken place on Bonn on 21-22 September 2018.
