The relationship between poverty, growth and inequality has been the subject of intense debate for decades. More recently, this debate has gained renewed interest among researchers and policymakers alike. As a result, progress has been made on both the theoretical and empirical fronts towards a better understanding of this relationship. The problem is that similar progress has not been made with respect to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This workshop is intended to begin filling this gap. The content of the workshop is based on a research project sponsored by ERF-GDN under the heading of “Poverty reduction, growth and inequality in the MENA Region”.

It is conducted by a team of ERF fellows, led by Mouna Cherkaoui. The analysis covers 5 country cases, namely: Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Syria. Workshop objectives The objectives of the workshop are to: • share the preliminary findings of this project with a well informed audience, • seek feedback from the participants on the draft papers, and • engage various stakeholders in a discussion about policy options based on evidence-based research. The papers provide a preliminary analysis of the link between growth, inequality and poverty in the MENA region. They also profile poverty and inequality in each of the 5 country cases, both individually and comparatively. Finally, they present empirical results using primary data from Household Surveys.

Click here to download the workshop papers