The World Bank issues a report on the growth of domestic production in Iraq

[size=52]World Bank: Financial performance has hurt the Middle East's handling of the pandemic[/size]

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 Capitals: agencies
The World Bank confirmed that the countries of the Middle East and North Africa are struggling to recover from the Covid-19 crisis, as economic crises have been exacerbated by weak financing of public health systems.
The bank stated in a report that the total cost of the COVID-19 pandemic, estimated according to GDP losses, will reach nearly $200 billion in the region by the end of the year.
According to the report, 13 of the 16 countries in the region will record a decline in living standards this year compared to what they were before the pandemic, as GDP per capita is expected to decline by 1.1% this year after a 5.4% decline in 2020.
“Long-term economic and social trends and underfunding of public health systems have left the Middle East and North Africa ill-equipped to deal with the pandemic, which is contributing to a fragile and inhomogeneous recovery as the region strives to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic,” the bank said.
In the ten years preceding the pandemic, the region failed to undertake deep reforms aimed at transitioning to a market-based economic model, which led to the expansion of the public sector.
“In this context, the Middle East and North Africa region suffered from poor financial performance in light of high public sector wage bills, and eventually government spending on health became unusually low in relation to the level of development in the region,” the bank said.
Most of the countries in the region recorded a greater than average increase in government spending ratios to GDP between 2009 and 2019, compared to their peers that started at the same level of income per capita.
“For all MENA countries for which data are available, rates of government spending on health compared to spending on public sector wages are lower than in other income countries,” he added.
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Looking ahead, the Bank expects a heterogeneous recovery, partly due to different vaccination rates against Covid-19, with richer countries leading by a wide margin.
“Health and the economy have become intertwined,” Roberta Gatti, chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank, told Reuters. “What ultimately turned out to be key is how to fight a pandemic.”
"Improving investment in data collection, sharing and dissemination can take a long time, and it may be something inexpensive to do to contribute to monitoring
Region".


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