Towards Privilege-Resistant Economic Policies in MENA : Shielding Policies from Privileges and Discretion
Unemployment rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are among the highest in the world, especially for young graduates. Policy recommendations to date in the field of governance for private sector policymaking have been too general...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/194651497302468775/Middle-East-and-North-Africa-Towards-privilege-resistant-economic-policies-in-MENA-shielding-policies-from-privileges-and-discretion-measurement-policy-instruments-and-operational-implications http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27525 |
| Summary: | Unemployment rates in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) region are among the highest in the
world, especially for young graduates. Policy
recommendations to date in the field of governance for
private sector policymaking have been too general and too
removed from concrete, actionable policy outcomes. This
report presents, for the first time to fill this policy and
operational gap by answering the following question: what
good governance features should be instilled in the design
of economic policies and institutions to help shield them
from capture, discretion, and arbitrary implementation? The
report presents an innovative conceptual framework that
encapsulates the governance features that can shield
policies from capture, discretion, and arbitrary enforcement
that limits competition. Based on this framework, a
check-list of policy features in a wide range of policy
areas relevant to private sector development policy is
presented, notably in terms of: (i) the process of
policy-making (ex-ante); (ii) the actual policies,
regulations, and their implementation (for example, business
regulations, procurement, financing, trade); and (iii)
competition policy and other attributes like open-business
and transparency measures that help identify, and prevent or
deter anti-competitive market behavior and outcomes
(ex-post). The report benchmarks eight countries along the
framework and checklist of indicators, pointing, for each
country, to policy gaps and poor governance features that
make these countries prone to capture and discretion. The
report offers a menu of operational and technical
entry-points to engage the capture agenda in a concrete way,
one that may be more politically tractable in some of the
client countries. |
|---|