Human Development in the Middle East and North Africa Region: Past and Future

In an article on trends in child mortality in developing countries published in 1986 the noted social scientist, J. C. Caldwell, found that all eleven of the worst performing countries by his calculations had majority Muslim populations and eight of them were from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Reviewing the relevant data three decades later we find dramatically opposite results. Not only has the MENA region performed the best among all global regions in improving child mortality indicators, and in improving education indicators and, in particular, female education attainment. What explains this? In part, the answer lies in the fact that human development (proxied by health and education indicators) is characterized by a process of convergence whereby countries with low levels of human development to begin with improve faster than countries with higher initial levels. Since MENA was in the cluster of low human development regions in the 1960s, it benefited from the convergence mechanism in subsequent decades. In addition to convergence, public spending was also responsible for the MENA region’s exceptional performance. By contrast, the pull of cultural elements (proxied by religion, for example) has proved to be weak. Dr Iqbal will discuss the prospects for MENA countries in light of this recent research. Dr Farrukh Iqbal has had more than thirty two years of analytic and management experience in the World Bank across a diverse range of countries and sectors. Among countries, he has worked on Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, China, Iran, Egypt, and the GCC. Among sectors and issues, he has worked and published on various aspects of economic development including fiscal and monetary management, trade and competitiveness, poverty, small and medium enterprises and local government development. His most recent analytic work concerns human development issues in the Middle East and North Africa region.He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University (1975) and a PhD in economics from Yale University (1981).