Human Development for a Middle East and North Africa in Transition

Human Development reforms, explored in-depth in the First Knowledge Package, can:

• Shape the impact of demographic ageing through better management of noncommunicable disease, lifelong learning, pension reforms and well-managed migration.
• Smooth the pace of demographic change, while creating jobs, through early childhood development, long term care, women’s economic empowerment and population services.
• Mitigate and adapt to impacts of climate shocks through adaptive social protection and smart infrastructure, while harnessing opportunities from the green transition through green skills development and technology adoption; and
• Harness the benefits of digitalization and AI, including via platform work and AI-enabled service delivery, by investing in digital skills, appropriate labor market regulations, and digital readiness.

To deliver on this vision, human development agencies will need to strengthen their capacity, accountability and resilience. The second knowledge package explores in-depth the current governance gaps and proposes a number of incremental reforms to achieve effective coverage.

Finally, MENA countries need to reverse declining or stagnant financing for HD sectors across most of the Region. The report proposes several practical solutions to improve spending efficiency, coordination of financing sources, and greater revenue collection that can be reinvested in people’s capabilities and avoid greater future costs. These are explored in depth in the third Knowledge Package.

Together, these components offer a policy roadmap to support inclusive, sustainable development in a region where global trends meet local complexities. By anticipating and preparing for what lies ahead, MENA countries can turn the risks of today into the opportunities of tomorrow.

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