Download or read book Public Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa written by Robert P. Beschel and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive—and often corrupt—governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.
Download or read book Trust Voice and Incentives written by Hana Brixi and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-05-29 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the role of incentives, trust, and engagement as critical determinants of service delivery performance in MENA countries. Focusing on education and health, the report illustrates how the weak external and internal accountability undermines policy implementation and service delivery performance and how such a cycle of poor performance can be counteracted. Case studies of local success reveal the importance of both formal and informal accountability relationships and the role of local leadership in inspiring and institutionalizing incentives toward better service delivery performance. Enhancing services for MENA citizens requires forging a stronger social contract among public servants, citizens, and service providers while empowering communities and local leaders to find 'best fit' solutions. Learning from the variations within countries, especially the outstanding local successes, can serve as a solid basis for new ideas and inspiration for improving service delivery. Such learning may help the World Bank Group and other donors as well as national and local leaders and civil society, in developing ways to enhance the trust, voice, and incentives for service delivery to meet citizens’ needs and expectations.
Download or read book Social Accountability Initiatives in Morocco Tunisia and Lebanon written by Ward Vloeberghs and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Convergence written by World Bank Group and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2020-02-10 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policy makers across the Middle East and North Africa have for many years articulated plans to integrate their people spatially and economically. Wishing to bring communities together and narrow economic gaps, governments have made large capital investments in transport corridors and “new cities.†? Hoping to provide jobs in places with little economic activity, governments have designated new industrial zones supported by spatially targeted business incentives. Yet the results of these place-based initiatives in MENA are limited. The disparities between capital cities and lagging areas, and between richer and poorer quarters of cities, remain stark. Across much of the region, a fortunate few are connected to opportunity, while many more people are marginal to the formal economy—or live outside it, seemingly forgotten. Why have place-based spatial initiatives in MENA countries largely underdelivered, not yielding more sustainable jobs and growth? Although the challenges are many and vary across the region, this book explains that many of these place-based policies get one thing wrong: they attempt to treat inequity‘s spatial and physical symptoms, not its causes. This book presents the five roots causes of spatial inequity in institutional inefficiencies across MENA—urban regulatory frictions, credentialist education systems, centralized control over local public services, barriers to the spatial mobility of goods and people, and barriers to market entry and lopsided business environments—within cities, within countries, and across national borders
Download or read book Public Administration in the Middle East and North Africa written by Shahjahan Bhuiyan and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the status of public administration in eight countries—the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, and Libya—in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This volume explores the issues, perspectives, traditions, and cultures that shape the operation of public administration in the region. This book also offers critical narratives on how the region’s governments manage the state and statecrafts regarding their governance design. It reflects on the multiplicity of public administration structures, functions, processes, and procedures, as well as reform schemes, which are critical in achieving good governance to continuously improve the human condition in the MENA region. Public Administration in the Middle East and North Africa will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, and students concerned with the ways in which technological change, knowledge accumulation, and dissemination can increase a state’s effective governance capacity. Foreword by B. Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh is freely available to download on the Routledge website.
Download or read book A Regional Overview on the Middle East written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Case for Case Studies written by Jennifer Widner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to narrow two gaps: first, between the widespread use of case studies and their frequently 'loose' methodological moorings; and second, between the scholarly community advancing methodological frontiers in case study research and the users of case studies in development policy and practice. It draws on the contributors' collective experience at this nexus, but the underlying issues are more broadly relevant to case study researchers and practitioners in all fields. How does one prepare a rigorous case study? When can causal inferences reasonably be drawn from a single case? When and how can policy-makers reasonably presume that a demonstrably successful intervention in one context might generate similarly impressive outcomes elsewhere, or if massively 'scaled up'? No matter their different starting points – disciplinary base, epistemological orientation, sectoral specialization, or practical concerns – readers will find issues of significance for their own field, and others across the social sciences. This title is also available Open Access.
Download or read book Political Economies of the Middle East and North Africa written by Robert Springborg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-16 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its oil wealth, the Middle East and North Africa is economically stagnating. Growth rates are comparatively unfavorable and insufficient to substantially improve citizens’ lives. Whether this economic inertia can be overcome or will continue into the indefinite future is a vital question that confronts both the region and the world. In this book leading Middle East scholar Robert Springborg discusses the economic future of this region by examining the national and regional political causes of its contemporary underperformance. Overgrown, weak MENA states, he explains, have been unable to escape their unfavorable historical legacies. “Limited access orders” and the deep states based in the means of coercion that underpin them undermine state capacities and constrain beneficial, autonomous political and economic activity. Increasingly challenged by their populations, MENA states face the daunting and so far unmet challenge of diversifying non-sustainable, rentier political economies away from direct or indirect dependence on oil and gas revenues. Stagnation of those revenues and failure to generate alternative income sources, combined with rapid population growth, presents the region with an economic challenge that can only be overcome by profound political change.
Download or read book Accessibility Gender and Social Safety Net Program written by Faraha Nawaz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Better Governance for Development in the Middle East and North Africa written by DC) World Bank (Washington and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Overconfident written by Roberta Gatti and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-10-06 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overconfident: How Economic and Health Fault Lines Left the Middle East and North Africa Ill-Prepared to Face COVID This report examines the region’s economic prospects in 2021, forecasting that the recovery will be both tenuous and uneven as per capita GDP level stays below pre-pandemic levels. COVID-19 was a stress-test for the region’s public health systems, which were already overwhelmed even before the pandemic. Indeed, a decade of lackluster economic reforms left a legacy of large public sectors and high public debt that effectively crowded out investments in social services such as public health. This edition points out that the region’s health systems were not only ill-prepared for the pandemic, but suffered from over-confidence, as authorities painted an overly optimistic picture in self-assessments of health system preparedness. Going forward, governments must improve data transparency for public health and undertake reforms to remedy historical underinvestment in public health systems.
Download or read book Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco written by Janine A. Clark and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, authoritarian states in the Middle East and North Africa have faced increasing international pressure to decentralize political power. Decentralization is presented as a panacea that will foster good governance and civil society, helping citizens procure basic services and fight corruption. Two of these states, Jordan and Morocco, are monarchies with elected parliaments and recent experiences of liberalization. Morocco began devolving certain responsibilities to municipal councils decades ago, while Jordan has consistently followed a path of greater centralization. Their experiences test such assumptions about the benefits of localism. Janine A. Clark examines why Morocco decentralized while Jordan did not and evaluates the impact of their divergent paths, ultimately explaining how authoritarian regimes can use decentralization reforms to consolidate power. Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco argues that decentralization is a tactic authoritarian regimes employ based on their coalition strategies to expand their base of support and strengthen patron-client ties. Clark analyzes the opportunities that decentralization presents to local actors to pursue their interests and lays out how municipal-level figures find ways to use reforms to their advantage. In Morocco, decentralization has resulted not in greater political inclusivity or improved services, but rather in the entrenchment of pro-regime elites in power. The main Islamist political party has also taken advantage of these reforms. In Jordan, decentralization would undermine the networks that benefit elites and their supporters. Based on extensive fieldwork, Local Politics in Jordan and Morocco is an important contribution to Middle East studies and political science that challenges our understanding of authoritarian regimes’ survival strategies and resilience.
Download or read book Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa written by Aslı Ü. Bâli and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, the first of its kind in the English language, examines the law and politics of federalism and decentralization in the Middle East and North Africa. Comprised of eleven case studies examining the experience across the region, together with essays by leading scholars providing comparative and theoretical perspectives and a synthetic conclusion by the co-editors, the volume offers a textured portrait of the dilemmas of decentralization during a period of sweeping transition in the region. The collection addresses an important gap in the comparative decentralization literature, which has largely neglected the MENA region. Both retrospective and forward-looking in orientation, the book is a valuable resource not only for scholars of comparative politics, constitutional design, and Middle East studies, but also for policy makers evaluating the feasibility and efficacy of decentralization as a vehicle for improving governance and responding to identity conflict in any part of the world.
Download or read book Tackling Violence Against Women in the Middle East and North Africa Governance and Victim Survivor Centred Approaches written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence against women (VAW) and girls exists in all countries and across all socio-economic groups, with around one in three women experiencing sexual and physical violence in their lifetime worldwide. This issue was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, intensifying the need for urgent action to eradicate it. Many governments, including in the MENA region, have enacted policies and programmes to tackle VAW. However, limited strategic planning, long-term investment in services, and co-ordinated responses among public institutions and actors involved in the implementation of VAW strategies have made it difficult to break the VAW cycle. Drawing on data collected through the 2022 OECD Survey on Strengthening Governance and Victim/survivor-centric Approaches to end Violence Against Women in MENA Countries, this report provides an overview of MENA countries’ efforts to develop whole-of-government VAW responses, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and with a view to help anticipate future crises. It assesses the gaps that hinder progress towards achieving lives free from violence for all women and girls and provides recommendations to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the policy and institutional frameworks across MENA countries in addressing VAW.
Download or read book The Economics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa written by Dominick de Waal and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2023-05-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite massive infrastructure investments, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continue to face unprecedented water scarcity due to climate change, population growth, and socioeconomic development. Current policy regimes for managing water across competing needs are primarily determined by state control of large infrastructure. Policy makers across the region understand the unsustainability of water allocations and that increasing investments in new infrastructure and technologies to increase water supply place a growing financial burden on governments. However, standard solutions for demand management—reallocating water to higher value uses, reducing waste, and increasing tariffs—pose difficult political dilemmas that, more often than not, are left unresolved. Without institutional reform, the region will likely remain in water distress even with increased financing for water sector infrastructure.The Economics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa: Institutional Solutions confronts the persistence and severity of water scarcity in MENA. The report draws on the tools of public economics to address two crucial challenges facing states in MENA: lack of legitimacy and trust. Evidence from the World Values Survey shows that people in the region believe that a key role of government is to keep prices down and that governments are reluctant to raise tariffs because of the risk of widespread protests. Instead of avoiding the “politically sensitive†? issue of water scarcity, this report argues that reform leaders and their external partners can reform national water institutions and draw on local political contestation to establish a new social contract. The crisis and emotive power of water in the region can be used to bolster legitimacy and trust and build a sustainable, inclusive, thriving economy that is resilient to climate change.
Download or read book The Middle East and North Africa 2003 written by Eur and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on with total page 1388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Launching Into Cyberspace written by Marcus F. Franda and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Franda (government and politics, U. of Maryland) examines the extent to which Internet development has taken place in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Eurasia, and Central and Eastern Europe. His focus is on the impact of the Internet on international relations. He discusses in detail the different ways each region has reacted to the spread of the global Internet and the consequences of these reactions for international relationships. c. Book News Inc.
