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on MENA - Middle East and North Africa |
| By: | Steinberg, Guido |
| Abstract: | Qatar's domestic and foreign policy since the 1990s has developed along three main lines: The emirate has expanded its gas production and supplies liquefied gas to as many countries as possible; it assures itself of US military protection by providing bases; and it conducts a "soft power" campaign in the form of investments in media and sports. During the Arab Spring, Qatar went on the offensive, marking a change in its regional policy. At the time, it aimed at nothing less than revising the regional order in the Arab world. Since Emir Tamim took office in 2013, however, Doha has scaled back its ambitions, yet it still wants to be recognised as a regional power. Qatar tries to defuse regional conflicts by positioning itself as a mediator. It maintains good relations with Iran, its allies in the region and with militant groups such as Hamas and the Taliban. This, as well as its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, repeatedly provokes conflicts with Saudi Arabia and other neighbours. As a result, Qatar has identified Turkey as its new protecting power. Qatar is an attractive partner for Germany and Europe and can become an important gas supplier that has shown a long-standing interest in the European market; it is also more flexible in its deliveries than many of its competitors. It was a serious mistake for German policy not to focus on Qatari gas much earlier. Placing more long-term orders could rectify this mistake. If there really is going to be a "Zeitenwende" security policy, Germany must also prepare itself for security risks emanating from the Middle East (keywords: migration, terrorism, nuclear proliferation). This means that Germany and Europe need pro-Western allies like Qatar. |
| Keywords: | Qatar, Thani family, authoritarian state, LNG, oil, gas, Persian Gulf, USA, al-Udaid airbase, Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, militant groups, Syria, Libya, Al Jazeera, al-Nusra Front, Taliban |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:swprps:42023&r=ara |
| By: | Gilligan, Daniel O.; Kurdi, Sikandra; Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul Jr.; Yassa, Basma |
| Abstract: | The Forsa program, launched in 2021 by the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity has been designed as a graduation program targeted to current beneficiaries of the Takaful cash transfer program. To understand how well Forsa supports household income generation and to better understand the beneficiary household characteristics which may relate to program success, the International Food Policy Research Institute in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Solidarity is running a randomized control trial of the pilot Forsa program (see IFPRI MENA Regional Program Policy Note 21 for more details on the program and evaluation design). A baseline household survey collected in January-February 2022 provides a detailed picture of the eligible households in the targeted communities, including the employment situation and work-related skills of the household members intending to participate in Forsa. The household survey data was collected in the eight governorates of the pilot: Beni-Suef, Sharqia, Qalyoubia, Luxor, Fayoum, Menia, Souhag, and Assuit. 24 households Forsa-eligible households were surveyed in each of 323 communities: 16 households from the pool of current Takaful beneficiaries and 8 from the pool of Takaful rejected applicants. The final sample size was 7, 752 households. Each household was asked whether they were willing to enroll in Forsa and, if so, which household member would participate in the trainings. 83% of sampled eligible households indicated willingness to enroll in Forsa. The large majority of these (77%) indicated a preference for the self-employment track. |
| Keywords: | EGYPT, ARAB COUNTRIES, MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA, AFRICA, agricultural economics, cash transfers, data analysis, data collection, households, income, poverty, poverty alleviation, surveys, surveying, economic inclusion program |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:menapn:22x&r=ara |
| By: | Mohamed Adaskou (FSJES - Faculté des sciences juridiques économiques et sociales d’Agadir); Abdelkarim Hssoune (FSJES - Faculté des sciences juridiques économiques et sociales d’Agadir) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the determinants of demand for microcredit by small family farms in the Chtouka-Ait-Baha province of Morocco. The study was conducted with 296 farmers using a stratified sampling method.The data was analyzed using Logit model. The results show that socioeconomic characteristics such as income, facing usury interest and proximity to microcredit association (MCA) have a negative and significant relationship with the probability of microcredit demand. However, credit information and engagement in non-agricultural activities have a positive and significant relationship with the probability of microcredit demand. With regard to the intrinsic characteristics of small family farms, the study shows a negative relationship between the number of cattle and the available surface area with the probability of microcredit demand, and a positive relationship between the cultivated area and microcredit demand. This article recommends the implementation of financial products that are better suited to the needs of small family farms and a better structuring of the agricultural sector to improve access to financing and encourage diversification of activities. These recommendations can strengthen the role of microcredit associations in financing small family farms in Morocco and contribute to the economic and social development of rural areas. |
| Abstract: | Cet article examine les déterminants de la demande de microcrédit par les petits exploitants agricoles familiaux dans la province Chtouka-Ait-Baha au Maroc. L'étude a été menée auprès de 296 exploitants agricoles en utilisant une méthode de sondage stratifiée. Les données ont été analysées à l'aide d'un modèle Logit. Les résultats montrent que les caractéristiques socioéconomiques telles que le revenu, la confrontation de l'intérêt à l'usure et la proximité de l'Association de microcrédit (AMC) ont une relation négative et significative avec la probabilité de demande de microcrédit. Cependant, l'information sur le crédit et l'exercice d'une activité non agricole ont une relation positive et significative avec la probabilité de demande de microcrédit. En ce qui concerne les caractéristiques intrinsèques des petites exploitations agricoles familiales, l'étude montre une relation négative entre le nombre de bovins et la superficie disponible avec la probabilité de demande de microcrédit, et une relation positive entre la superficie cultivée et la demande de microcrédit. L'article recommande la mise en place de produits financiers plus adaptés aux besoins des petites exploitations familiales et une meilleure structuration du secteur agricole pour améliorer l'accès aux financements et encourager la diversification des activités. Ces recommandations peuvent renforcer le rôle des associations de microcrédit dans le financement des petites exploitations agricoles familiales au Maroc et contribuer ainsi au développement économique et social des zones rurales. |
| Keywords: | Chtouka-Ait-Baha, determinant, logit model, microcredit, small family farm, déterminant, microcrédit, modèle logit, petite exploitation familiale |
| Date: | 2023–04–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04070987&r=ara |
| By: | Anwar Gasim; Lester C. Hunt; Jeyhun Mikayilov (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center) |
| Abstract: | Reducing methane (CH4) emissions is key to near-term efforts to limit global warming. CH4 is the second most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmosphere after carbon dioxide (CO2). The production, transport, and consumption of fossil fuels, in addition to waste and agriculture, account for most anthropogenic CH4 emissions globally (IPCC 2018). Although CH4has only a 12-year lifetime in the atmosphere, it is 84 times more potent per ton than CO2 in a 20-year period and 28 times more potent in a 100-year period (IPCC 2018). The drastically stronger short-term potency of CH4 explains why its short-term impact on global warming is considerably greater than that of CO2. Therefore, meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement necessitates not only decarbonization but also significant CH4 emissions reductions, especially in the near term. |
| Keywords: | Belt and Road, Capital expenditure, Circular Carbon Economy, CO2 emissions |
| Date: | 2023–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:prc:dpaper:ks--2023-dp08&r=ara |
| By: | Anwar Gasim; Lester C. Hunt; Jeyhun Mikayilov (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center) |
| Abstract: | To tackle the threat of climate change, countries worldwide have signed the Paris Agreement. This agreement aims to limit the global average temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius and potentially below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (UNFCCC 2015). Parties to the Paris Agreement are required to submit domestic climate plans detailing their mitigation measures, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). These plans detail countries’ ambitions and efforts to combat and respond to climate change. NDCs are communicated at five-year intervals, and each successive NDC must represent an increase in ambition over the previous one. |
| Keywords: | Belt and Road, Captial expenditure, Circular Carbon Economy, CO2 emissions |
| Date: | 2023–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:prc:dpaper:ks--2022-dp19&r=ara |
| By: | Chniguir Mounira; Henchiri Jamel Eddine |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to test the relationship between investor sentiment and the profitability of stocks listed on two emergent financial markets, the Moroccan and Tunisian ones. Two indirect measures of investor sentiment are used, SENT and ARMS. These sentiment indicators show that there is an important relationship between the stocks returns and investor sentiment. Indeed, the results of modeling investor sentiment by past observations show that sentiment has weak memory; on the other hand, series of changes in sentiment have significant memory. The results of the Granger causality test between stock return and investor sentiment show us that profitability causes investor sentiment and not the other way around for the two financial markets studied.Thanks to four autoregressive relationships estimated between investor sentiment, change in sentiment, stock return and change in stock return, we find firstly that the returns predict the changes in sentiments which confirms with our hypothesis and secondly, the variation in profitability negatively affects investor sentiment.We conclude that whatever sentiment measure is used there is a positive and significant relationship between investor sentiment and profitability, but sentiment cannot be predicted from our various variables. |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2305.16632&r=ara |
| By: | Marwa Khouya (UIT - Université Ibn Tofaïl); Abdelhay Benabdelhadi (UIT - Université Ibn Tofaïl) |
| Abstract: | Good governance includes all the rules and collective processes by which the actors concerned participate in the decision-making and realization of public actions. Public communication with a strategic and well-structured vision of information exchange is part of this perspective. Despite the fact that studies have been devoted to the relationship between public communication and good governance in public institutions, few empirical studies have explained the nature of this relationship. As part of the new public management, public institutions in Morocco have moved towards a whole new way of managing through reforms and implementation of the good governance approach. The purpose of our qualitative study is to highlight the importance of public communication in the process of good governance, as well as to clarify the different components of public communication in order to understand its contribution to the process of good governance. The interviewees were managers and officials of various positions within public institutions operating in different sectors of activity. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted and subjected to a thematic content analysis. The results identify the main elements that determine public communication: public service values, free access to information, digitization, interactivity, personal skills and behaviors, ethics and transparency. Especially since each component is taken into account both theoretically and empirically in the process of good governance, takes place in Moroccan institutions more and more. Thereby, this research provides valuable implications about the potential role of public communication in contributing to transparency, clarity in decision-making, ethical behavior, the rule of law, and strengthening the public interest in public institutions in Morocco. |
| Keywords: | Public communication, good governance, public institutions, new public management, transparency |
| Date: | 2023–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04066907&r=ara |
| By: | Randriamamonjy, Josée; Raouf, Mariam; Siddig, Khalid |
| Abstract: | Nexus SAMs aims to improve the quality and standardize the construction process of SAMs using a standard toolkit that enables tracing data sources and assumptions. The unified structure of nexus SAMs allows for more robust cross-country comparisons of economies, especially the sectoral composition, allocation of government spending and trade orientation. The 2019 SAM for Sudan is a snapshot capturing the structure of the Sudanese Economy and depicting the different transactions between the production activities, factors of production and other income generating and consuming entities in the economy besides the good and services (produced and consumed). The circular flow of income is completed by including the accounts for enterprises, government, and rest of the world. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) relied on both international and local data sources to develop the first Nexus SAM for Sudan for the year 2019. The leading domestic data sources are the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS), the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MFEP) and the Ministry of Human Resources Development and Labor (MHRDL). Like other Nexus SAMs, the Sudan SAM puts a strong emphasis on the household accounts by providing details on both income and expenditure sides as well as savings. We used a household income and expenditure survey to disaggregate the household account into income deciles both in rural and urban areas. The SAM also provides disaggregated representation of production activities including 77 activities producing 79 commodities. Production factors included in the Nexus SAM for Sudan are labor, capital, and land. Labor is further classified by location to rural and urban, by gender to male and female, and by the level education to unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labor. Land and capital factors are left without further disaggregation. |
| Keywords: | REPUBLIC OF THE SUDAN; EAST AFRICA; AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA; AFRICA; data; households; gender; income; production; trade; surveys; commodities; labour; capital; land Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ssspwp:6&r=ara |
| By: | Fakhri Hasanov; Muhammad Javid; Jeyhun Mikayilov; Rami Shabaneh; Abdulelah Darandary; Ryan Alyamani (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center) |
| Abstract: | Macroeconomic and sectoral assessment of the energy price reform (EPR) can provide policymakers with useful insights regarding price deregulation options. A key feature of this research that differentiates it from many other studies is its modeling framework. The framework first estimates how theoretically articulated determinants (e.g., income and price) historically shaped natural gas demand. Then, this estimated equation is integrated into a macroeconometric model called KGEMM to simulate the impact of natural gas prices on key macroeconomic and sectoral indicators that are of policy interest for the coming years. |
| Keywords: | Agent based modeling, Analytics, Applied research, Autometrics |
| Date: | 2023–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:prc:dpaper:ks--2022-dp22&r=ara |
| By: | Wissam Samia (LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne); Nada Mallah Boustani (USJ - Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, LEFMI - Laboratoire d’Économie, Finance, Management et Innovation - UR UPJV 4286 - UPJV - Université de Picardie Jules Verne) |
| Abstract: | This research paper studies the benefits and the feasibility of a Single Currency in the Natural Syria region. The economic crisis that heavily weighs on the countries of this region makes it primordial to join forces and converge resources, potentials, and opportunities to raise the standard of living. A monetary union with its single currency may hold structural remedies to the woes of this region whose ability to face its economic, political, and internal difficulties depends mainly on the logic of support and cooperation. Based on a conceptual model of a currency basket, taking into consideration specific economic and monetary criteria, this potential union is enhanced by a single currency establishment that must be a feature of economic and political relations between the countries of the region which achieve the supreme interest represented in eliminating cases of fragmentation and disintegration and ensuring a comfortable life for the citizen. Hereby, the implementation of a Single Currency in Natural Syria seems to be a real turning point. |
| Keywords: | Single currency, Monetary Union, Production, Innovation |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04081283&r=ara |
| By: | Resul Cesur; Arzu Kibris |
| Abstract: | This research is the first to identify the impact of armed conflict exposure for the average male randomly drawn from the population on subsequent intimate partner violence (IPV). We exploit a population-level natural experiment in service location assignment of draftees under Turkey’s universal conscription system, inducting 90% of all draft-age men for 15-to-18 months, with nearly a quarter of them being deployed to the conflict zone during our analysis period, 1984-to-2011, in the southeast of the country to curb the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) insurgency. Purging any confounding influence of civilian exposure, the innovative design of our survey captures isolated exposure during military service. Results show that conflict zone deployment increases physical and psychological IPV perpetration from husband to wife. Probing the mechanisms, our analysis first renders the use of violence as an instrumental behavior in intrahousehold bargaining as an unlikely mechanism by eliminating labor market outcomes and economic- and social-controlling behaviors from the list of usual suspects. Moreover, we rule out the possibility of risky health habits exacerbating the unfavorable effects of combat. Then, we show compelling evidence that normalizing violence in everyday life, likely emerging as an expressive behavior when arguments escalate, is the primary mediating pathway. |
| JEL: | I0 O17 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31227&r=ara |
| By: | Leight, Jessica; Mvukiyehe, Eric |
| Abstract: | While a growing literature analyzes the economic effects of cash for work programs in developing countries, there remains little evidence about the longer-term effects of these interventions. This paper presents findings from a randomized controlled trial evaluating a three month intervention providing public works em ployment in rural Tunisia. The evaluation design incorporates two dimensions of randomization — community-level randomization to treatment and control, and individual-level randomization among eligible individuals — and a sample of 2, 718 individuals was tracked over five years. The findings suggest that cash for work leads to significant increases in labor market engagement, assets, consumption, financial inclusion, civic engagement, psychological well being, and women’s em powerment one-year post-treatment; however, these effects have largely attenuated to zero five years post-treatment, with the exception of a positive effect on assets. There is also evidence of positive spillover effects within treatment communities, but these effects similarly attenuate over time. |
| Keywords: | TUNISIA; NORTH AFRICA; AFRICA; economics; public works; employment; rural areas; cash flow; cash transfers; labour market; public participation; assets; developing countries; finance; gender equity; women; randomized controlled trial |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2184&r=ara |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | In the 19th and 20th centuries, Turkey considered only North Africa a substantial part of the Ottoman Empire and neglected sub-Saharan Africa unless vital interests were at stake. However, the apathy of successive Turkish governments changed with the 1998 "Africa Action Plan". Since then, the Turkish state has intensified its diplomatic, political, economic and cultural interactions with sub-Saharan Africa. Turkish-African relations received a further boost when Ankara declared 2005 the "Year of Africa". Although the predominantly Muslim region of North Africa is the focus of Turkish foreign policy due to their shared history, the importance of Sub-Saharan Africa has also increased due to the growing demand for military and medical supplies. Since 2005, Ankara promoted state-building in sub-Saharan Africa, although it does not follow Western democratization policies. Turkey's growing economic, political and security involvement in Africa aims to open new markets for its manufactured goods, particularly its defence and security industries. Presenting itself as a relevant regional power without colonial ballast, Turkey sets itself apart from traditional Western players on the continent. Turkey's engagement in sub-Saharan Africa differed markedly from that of other emerging powers such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. While Ankara shared the disregard for Western sanctions due to BRICS members' democratic deficits, it went beyond traditional state-to-state relations and increasingly relied on cooperation with non-state actors. African partners value Turkish products and expertise. In addition, Ankara has taken a coordinated approach to working with African states and leaders, avoiding entanglements with international organizations or other alliances, as in Somalia and Kenya, but more recently in much of East, South and West Africa. This has been demonstrated using the example of the three West African countries Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast. |
| Keywords: | Turquie; Afrique subsaharienne; Afrique de l'Ouest; Nigeria; Ghana; Côte d'Ivoire; commerce international; migration; développement durable; démocratisation; postcolonialisme; nationalisme; BRICS; Chine; France; Grande-Bretagne; aide au développement; ONG; Études africaines |
| JEL: | E26 F22 F24 F35 F52 F54 F63 I31 J46 J61 L31 N14 N17 N37 N47 O17 O35 O55 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115939&r=ara |