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OVERVIEW OF SELECTED MENA ECONOMIES 9


Average unemployment rates are highest among both youth and adults in MENA, when compared to all other developing regions. The share of young people among the region’s unemployed is higher than 50 percent in most countries. In Egypt and Syria, youth make up more than 60 percent of the unemployed. In Tunisia, the unemployment rate for 20–24 year olds is more than three times higher than that for people above 40. And low labor force participation rate among females per- sists, even among younger cohorts with higher educational attainment. (World Bank 2007)


The MENA region is relatively urbanized, with 57 percent of the popula- tion in urban areas. Djibouti, Jordan, and Lebanon are the most urbanized, with urbanization rates of more than 80 percent (see Table 1.1). According to Fedjari (2000, cited in Radwan and Reiffers 2003), there are 180,000 rural migrants per year in Morocco, and 60,000 of these head for Casablanca. The high proportion of the population in urban area contributes to the depen- dence on food imports to satisfy domestic demand.


The incidence of poverty using the poverty line of US$2 per day is on aver- age 20 percent for the MENA region, but the incidence varies greatly across the countries (see Table 1.1). Using the poverty line of US$1 per day, Djibouti has the highest poverty incidence (56 percent), followed by the West Bank and Gaza (24 percent). The subnational indicators (not shown here) reveal un- ambiguously that poverty in the MENA region, as in many developing countries, is more prevalent in rural areas than in urban ones (World Bank 2008b). The GDP structure of the MENA countries indicates the dominant role of services and industry in these economies. On average, in the region the ser- vice sector contributes nearly half of GDP and industry more than a third. But countries differ widely around these averages. Services account for two-thirds or more of GDP in Djibouti, Jordan, and Lebanon (Table 2.1). In Djibouti, port and transport services are an important part of the economy because the country serves as the main trans-shipment route for Ethiopian trade.


The contribution of industry to GDP averages 40 percent for the MENA region, but it is less than this in all eight of the non-oil-exporting countries under consideration. For most of these countries, manufacturing dominates the contribution of the industrial sector to GDP. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria are the most industrialized, with this sector accounting for 30 percent or more of their GDP (see Table 2.1).


The agricultural sector accounts for 12 percent of GDP on average for the MENA region. Among the eight countries under consideration, the contribu-


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