Cities for More and Better Jobs in the Middle East and North Africa Region

Despite being the world’s fourth most urbanized region with around two-thirds of people live in cities, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has not fully reaped the benefits of urban agglomeration for job creation and growth. 

Many MENA countries have GDPs that are below predicted levels given their actual levels of urbanization. Since the Arab Spring, the average growth rate of real GDP per capita across MENA countries has been a mere 0.29 percent per annum compared to 1.72 percent per annum in previous decade. And countries continue to struggle to create sufficient employment for their growing working age populations, affecting particularly youth and women—in 2019, MENA’s youth unemployment rate of 26 percent ranked as the highest in the world.

The World Bank is developing a new flagship knowledge initiative on "MENA Cities for More and Better Jobs" to support Arab countries navigate these challenges. This report will look at how MENA cities have enabled job creation across the region in the past 10 years, and reflect on how urban policies could unleash economic growth and employment in urban areas.

The event will share the preliminary findings of the benchmarking of 800 cities, positioning the recent evolution of productivity and jobs in MENA cities compared to other cities across the world. Participants will discuss those in the context of the various country and city experiences around employment challenges and opportunities as observed in the region.