COVID-19 challenged healthcare systems across the Middle East and North Africa, many of which were overburdened even before the pandemic began. High public wage bills crowded out investments in social services such as health, a syndrome described as "fiscal myopia" by the latest World Bank MENA Economic Update report, Overconfident: How Economic and Health Fault Lines Left the Middle East and North Africa Ill-Prepared to Face COVID-19. The report predicts a tenuous and uneven recovery as countries emerge from COVID-19, which will also be influenced by the widely varying pace of vaccination rates across the region. Learn more by joining this event.