Inequality

Greater female participation in the labor market and in international trade have been recognized as important drivers for economic growth and essential targets in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, achieving both targets simultaneously will be difficult, if not impossible, in most Middle East and North African (MENA) countries without additional policies to eliminate the remarkably high levels of gender inequality in the labor market. I ...

Public policies, particularly those related to taxes and subsidies, should help to reduce poverty and inequality. However, the combination of components of these two systems, as implemented, leads sometimes to an increase in poverty and or inequality without being necessarily anticipated. In this policy brief, based on data from the 2019 wave of the Enquête Panel de Ménage from the Observatoire National du Développement Human from Morocco, we first highlight the influence of taxes ...

Addressing inequalities in all their forms has emerged as one of the major global challenges faced by numerous countries across the globe, particularly in Africa. In a context where Africa faces many pressing challenges that are the subject of much analysis (Sarbib et al. 2022), there is a clear gap in conducting comprehensive reviews focused on inequalities, partly due to the lack of available data. Inequalities, which are both consequences and partial causes of poor development o ...

Août, l’économie plonge. La production est en vacances, les investisseurs temporisent. Le volume de travail tombe au-dessous du minimum ordinaire, entraînant au passage un relâchement de la discipline et de l’effort. Un mois durant, l’économie est en mal de repères et s’éloigne de ses objectifs ; elle perd beaucoup de sa rationalité et n’apparaît plus tout à fait dans une logique de productivité et de compétitivité. Le manque à gagner qui en découle se retrouve dans les bas de bilan ...

Le secteur informel est une composante essentielle de l'économie marocaine, employant une large partie de la population, mais nuisant à la productivité, aux recettes fiscales de l’État et à la croissance économique à long terme. Sur la base de la définition adoptée dans cette étude et qui définit les travailleurs informels comme étant ceux qui ne sont pas couverts par les régimes contributifs de sécurité sociale de la Caisse nationale de sécurité sociale (CNSS) et d ...

The targeting of public policies, particularly those related to the reform of the social protection system in Morocco, is a major challenge, especially in assessing the impact of these measures on multidimensional poverty. By developing two targeting methods to approach the impact of the reform of the social protection system in Morocco on multidimensional poverty as measured by the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), we show that the three simulated reforms on education and healt ...

This paper presents a synthetic view of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the economic sectors and regions that make up the Moroccan economy, taking into account the current economic structure and production technologies. Therefore, the potential effects must be understood as signals to think about interventions aimed at redirecting the desired trajectories of sustainable development. The application of the tools developed to give scientific support to this analysis rev ...

Gender disparities in the labor market persist as a serious challenge, resulting in lower participation rates for women than men. This gender gap in labor force participation varies considerably across regions, with female participation rates consistently lagging men. After some progress during the last few decades, the multiple crises faced by the global economy in recent times – pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising risks of climate change, and slowing growth after high inflation ...

Nous célébrons, le 8 mars de chaque année, la Journée internationale des droits de la femme. En cette occasion, il est utile de rappeler quelques faits stylisés et observations d’ordre général sur la position qu’occupe la femme dans l’économie marocaine. Face aux constats que l’on dressera ci-dessous, le moins que l’on puisse dire est que l’instant n’est pas à la célébration mais à l’action : la participation de la femme marocaine à l’activité économique demeure relativement faible ...

Le présent travail s’intéresse à la question de l’accompagnement et la réintégration des travailleuses marocaines saisonnières en Espagne. Il met en avance l’existence de déficits à plusieurs niveaux. Des plus importants sont : une inclusion financière et un accompagnement en matière de renforcement de l’employabilité ; un accompagnement en matière d’alphabétisation financière ; un accompagnement en matière de création, et post-création, d'activités génératrices de revenus ; un acco ...

Protests are a reoccurring reality in this troubled nation, located in one of the world's most essential and dangerous strategic regions. Tires are often burning, and women dance in the streets, clapping their hands in defying mode. Shots are fired, and at times live ammunition is used by the Basij, black-clad paramilitary units, mainly recruited in rural regions and symbolizing the rural/urban divide in the theocracy of 86 million people. The stormtroopers of the repressive Iranian ...

La place de l'intelligence artificielle (IA) dans notre vie quotidienne est de plus en plus importante. Ayant connu un essor considérable durant les dernières années, l’intelligence artificielle correspond aux technologies capables de traiter des sources hybrides et notamment des données non structurées. Ainsi, des tâches complexes sont déléguées à des procédés technologiques de plus en plus autonomes, en mesure d’impulser le développement économique et social du Maroc ...

It was a grey day with a drizzle here and a drizzle there when mourners gathered at St George’s Cathedral in a usually sunny Capetown to pay their last respect to the Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, the moral force against Apartheid struggle in South Africa was subdued and thoughtful as human beings when death and a rendezvous with eternity have been called. South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa led his nation and the world in remembering Tutu. He described him as “our moral compass a ...

Their boat-if you name a large rubber pumped up like a giant tire, was rocked by waves, and the engine halted its movements. On November 24, all the 29 passengers tried to reach coastguard stations in France and England via their cell phones few minutes between life and death. No one answered, and when finally contact was established by another, still floating migrant boat, witnessing the tragedy in the making (New York Times December 14, 2021), they were asked to pinpoint their l ...

Xenophobic violence against minorities and non-nationals has erupted periodically in different parts of Africa: against Somalis in Kenya, Nigerians in Ghana, Chadians in Libya, and Asians in South Africa. Scholars have offered various explanations for these outbursts of violence, focusing on inequality or how simultaneous market reforms and democratization can unleash resentment against “market- dominant minorities.” Others see the violence as linked to elections, noting how politic ...

A Case for Regulators to Green Financial Inclusion Financial Inclusion is an Excellent Tool for Combating Poverty It is well known that supporting financial inclusion is a relevant tool in lifting people out of poverty. There is plenty of empirical evidence showing that financial inclusion significantly reduces poverty and income inequality in developing countries. Concerted efforts to support financial inclusion globally have existed since the United Nations Capital Development ...

On 16 December 2019, the Honorable Chakib Benmoussa, then Morocco’s ambassador to France, gathered 35 fellow citizens in a conference room at the Royal Academy in the leafy outskirts of Rabat. The three dozen members of the Commission spéciale sur le modèle de développement (CSMD) had been selected for their scientific, economic and political expertise, as well as eminence in the cultural and non-profit sectors. The Commission’s mandate, given by King Mohammed VI, was a daunting one ...

The rhythm of samba is being replaced by funeral hymns. Almost 560,000 Brazilians (608,000 as of October 31,2021) have succumbed to COVID-19, the world’s second highest death toll, and no end is in sight. There have been “Staggering losses”, as the BBC reported (on July 8), provoking Medecins sans Frontières to warn of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Brazil. Supplies of drugs and oxygen, confirmed British publication The Lancet, “are running short”. Yet, Jair Bolsonaro, president o ...

Scarcity of inputs and goods has been felt all over the world because of disruptions to global value chains since the beginning of the pandemic. Factory closures in China at the beginning of 2020, lockdowns in many countries and, subsequently, congestion in logistics networks for transporting goods, capacity constraints in the face of sudden increases in demand, and labor shortages, have combined to negatively affect the availability of inputs and products worldwide. Higher freight ...

If any proof was needed that change was in the air and repression on the horizon, it was in the center of Kabul: a simple sign was changed, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs was turned into the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice. This was nothing less than the return of the Taliban’s moral police, well remembered by the older population, ready to enforce a harsh interpretation of the religious law, the Sharia, including stoning, amputation, lashing, and publi ...

In July 2021, the United Nations issued a condemnation against the “dramatic rise” in attacks against “descent-based slaves” in Mali, calling the violence “unacceptable”[i]. The statement was in response to a tragic episode in the eastern region of Kayes, where landowners using machetes and rifles assaulted a group of indentured laborers to prevent them working on the landowners’ fields. Tomoya Okobata, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, said these “assaul ...

Brazil, an oil-exporting nation, was still struggling to recover from the depression which started around 2014/15 when it was hit by a quick succession of shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price collapse. The global pandemic triggered major economic dislocations and contractions in foreign and domestic markets, which further exacerbated the fall in demand for oil, sending world prices tumbling further. Poverty was already widespread in Brazil pre-pandemic. And despite recen ...

The Covid-19 pandemic has induced a major shift in Carolina Zuheill Rosales’ career. This internal medicine doctor founded Guimedic in 2011, when she was 25. Through its mobile clinics, this NGO provides medical consultations in remote and poor areas throughout Mexico. The main focus is to treat indigenous communities. Because of a structural lack of medical access to these populations, she has launched in March 2020 Promesa, a social business that is using artificial intelligence. ...

The maxim that in adversity we find unity has never truly materialized following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Despite fighting a common enemy, individual societies have turned inwards, moved by a self-preservation instinct that prioritizes individual over collective well-being. Outbursts and demonstrations of solidarity have punctuated national and international responses to COVID-19, but the virus has also often exacerbated structural inequalities, reopening ol ...

This article was originally published on Bruegel  A recovery from the COVID-19 recession is underway though the suffering is far from over, especially for the most vulnerable. Inequality is both a consequence of the pandemic and a cause of its severity. Many countries need comprehensive policy change to address its worst effects. At the end of a tragic year marked by pandemic and increased poverty, the miraculously rapid arrival of vaccines stirs great hope. The COVID-19 recession ...

The Atlantic basin faces considerable challenges on multiple fronts. Financial and economic struggles, coupled with political shifts and social turmoil, are reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape. Unemployment, poverty, violence, migration, extremism, climate change and other problems are on the rise and the need to tackle them effectively is pressing. To find adequate solutions to these challenges, it is crucial to create inclusive discussions between the North and the Sout ...

Social media is increasingly used by oppressed and helpless communities as a voice to create change and increase awareness about social injustice. In this paper, we study the Black Lives Matter movement, one of the fastest-growing social movements in the United States, through the Twitter lens by collecting around 600,000 tweets with both the #BlackLivesMatter and #BLM hashtags, published from March to July 2020. Our study shows that this movement has received unprecedented attentio ...

« Passionate, Black, visionary » Ana Paula Barreto talks about serious matters with great calm, taking time to reflect before answering questions, from New York. Born in Jardim Angela, a poor area of São Paulo, considered as the most dangerous neighbourhood in the world by the United Nations in 1996, she remembers the violence of the favelas. She doesn’t want to reduce her childhood « in a joyful family » to « the ugly », but one of her strongest memories is seeing the bodies of pe ...

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage and fuel much political and economic turmoil, a new scourge is crashing down on the world: Vaccine nationalism. Witnessing the fragmentation of global public health and the erosion of multilateralism in the midst of health chaos, vaccine nationalism – a race for priority rights to monopolize limitedproduction doses – is threatening to politicize access to vaccines. In addition to ethical concerns, this nationalist approach feeds health and ...

Latin American and Caribbean economies need help, but organizations like the IDB are also stretched thin. First appeared at Americas Quarterly With Latin America and the Caribbean potentially facing years of difficulties due to the pandemic and related economic crises, attention has shifted to what multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) might do to help. There’s no doubt they can play a crucial role in preventing another lost decade in the region. But ...

During the medal ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City on October 16, 1968, two Black American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a gloved fist during the playing of the U.S. national anthem. The two Americans received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to present black pride. Carlos, who won a bronze medal, wore a necklace of beads, which he said “were for those individuals th ...

Le ciblage est un point de focalisation de l’impact social des programmes de lutte contre la pauvreté et des aides monétaires de l’Etat aux catégories sociales pauvres et vulnérables. La pratique du ciblage n’est pas récente dans la trajectoire des politiques publiques. Elle donne lieu à des controverses sur les méthodes appropriées pour atteindre les populations cibles ou les territoires prioritaires des politiques et programmes sociaux. Les difficultés du ciblage sont devenues le ...

We are living through unprecedented times. The COVID-19 pandemic threatens not only our health, but the very foundation of life itself: our food security. Now more than ever, we are forced to rethink our food security as we witness the widespread dislocations to our food system, forcing millions to beg for food for the first time. During normal times, our world produces enough nutritious food for all but millions still go hungry every day. Why does this happen and what can be done t ...

In times of shadow and despair, populists and authoritarians move in to undermine free speech and democracy. For authoritarian-minded leaders, wrote Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, writing in the New York Review of Books, “the coronavirus crisis is offering a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power. Censorship in China and elsewhere has fed the pandemic, helping to turn a potentially containable threat into a global calamity. The health cr ...

She is just seventeen. An African-American high-school student. If Darnella Frazier had not turned on her cellphone on May 25, when she witnessed four police officers arresting a black man in Minneapolis, the world would never have known how George Floyd died that day, or why. A convenience store employee had called the police, accusing Mr Floyd of buying cigarettes with a fake $20 bill. Possibly Mr Floyd resisted arrest, which did not result in a “medical incident” as the police in ...

Ce travail vient explorer une nouvelle piste qui pourrait contribuer à une levée de confinement efficace. Il s’agit d’un phénomène que l’on appelle « effet coupe du monde ». Nous définissons, d’abord, ce phénomène, montrons son existence et son éventuel effet amplificateur au regard de la progression de la pandémie, en termes du nombre de cas infectés au pic et la durée encourue avant son atteinte. Partant de scénarios hypothétiques, en ce qui concerne les conditions initiales à la ...

This paper takes a comparative look at Sudan, Morocco, and Algeria, at the rise of Nubian and Amazigh rights groups, and their attempts to redefine national identity. We examine: 1/ how Nubian rights groups have sparked what is being called a Kushite revival in Sudan, and are pushing for a change in educational policy and archaeological practice to engender a new historiography and national narrative; 2/ how Amazigh movements in Morocco and Algeria are similarly trying to expand con ...

فرضت جائحة فيروس كورونا المستجد سلوكات جديدة على عادات الناس سواء في المغرب أو على الصعيد العالمي، وذلك حماية للنفس وللآخرين من انتقال العدوى. ومنذ بداية انتشار هذا الوباء، تعبأت السلطات العمومية من أجل فرض ومراقبة وتأطير هذه السلوكات قصد إنجاح عملية الحجر الصحي، أي البقاء في البيوت وعدم مغادرتها إلا للضرورة القصوى ووفق شروط محددة.  وهكذا أغلقت مؤسسات التكوين وأماكن العبادات ووحدات الإنتاج والمقاهي والمطاعم ومؤسسات الترفيه، ووضعت ضوابط لفتح الأسواق الأسبوعية ومؤسسات التجارة الغذائي ...

They live in the shadow of death: the United States has 2,650 death-row inmates, 740 in California’s San Quentin State Prison alone. Today, these prisoners fear another executioner, the invisible COVID-19. The condemned on death row live in single cells, some having spent many decades in solitary confinement. The suicide rate is high, and many die of natural causes before their rendezvous with the special execution team. These prisoners hardly ever receive visitors, and for them th ...

La transition politique de l’Égypte, depuis 2011, a été tout aussi turbulente que sa transition économique. Tous les efforts de l’Egypte post-Moubarak se sont articulés autour de la relance économique, la stabilisation macroéconomique et politique et du renforcement de la sécurité interne du pays. Suite à l’accord avec le Fonds monétaire international (FMI), en 2016, l’Egypte a mené plusieurs réformes économiques qui ont, pu relancer la croissance économique et donner des résultats ...

The Coronavirus’ ugly and fierce spread throughout the world underscores the limitations of health infrastructure and shortcomings in public health administration. What’s more troubling, is the pandemic’s especially pernicious effects on vulnerable populations in the United States—ethnic and racial minorities, disabled persons, women, the elderly, and impoverished communities. The virus knows no boundaries and, yet, structural inequality makes it all the more terrifying for marginal ...

Parmi les questions débattues dans les milieux de la décision économique et de la réflexion académique, dans les pays du Nord comme dans les pays du Sud en développement, en ce moment d’arrêt économique et d’accélération de l’histoire, un thème a ressurgi avec force : celui du revenu universel de base, le transfert inconditionnel, sur une période donnée ou de façon permanente, d’un montant d’argent par l’État à tous les citoyens qui répondent à une série de critères d’éligibilité si ...

La crise du Covid-19 ne cesse d’impacter les économies des pays du monde entier, aussi bien dans les pays développés que dans les pays en voie de développement. La situation serait plus délicate pour les pays pauvres. L’économie de ces pays est moins résiliente aux chocs et fortement tributaire des échanges commerciaux[1]. Les taux de chômage risquent de grimper et probablement pour une période assez longue. Les entreprises ayant pris des mesures pour arrêter totalement leurs activi ...

Covid-19 has already put severe pressure on the global economy. Within four months since the first cases of coronavirus were confirmed in China in December of 2019, millions of people have lost their jobs worldwide due to the crisis and the imposed lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. The forecasts are gloomy. According to the International Monetary Fund, the pandemic will trigger negative growth in over 170 countries and might therefore bring a worse economic recession than ...

Dans cette période de catastrophe planétaire, le risque d'un nombre élevé de victimes en raison de la faiblesse des systèmes de santé de nombreux Etats africains, anglophones ou francophones, est plus qu’évident pour l’observateur averti. Les circonstances actuelles interdisent des commentaires évidemment superflus sur les infrastructures médicales, globalement défaillantes. Ces insuffisances sont connues et vécues au quotidien par les populations des diverses régions du continent, ...

في وقت توجه فيه كل دول العالم تركيزها نحو الشأن الداخلي لمواجهة وباء فيروس “كورونا”، أكد العديد من الباحثين المغاربة والأجانب في الشأن الاقتصادي والسياسي على ضروة التفكير بطرق يستطيع من خلالها فاعلون خارجيون تقديم المساعدة للدول الفقيرة، “ويجب أن تتم الاستجابات في إفريقيا من خلال تنفيذ أفضل الممارسات فيما يتعلق بالتعاون الدولي”. وفي ذات السياق دعا الخبراء، وجلهم مسؤولون عن مراكز دراسات أوربية وإفريقية ذات صيت عالمي، من بينهم الخبير الاقتصادي المغربي كريم العيناوي، مدير مركز السياسا ...

Covid-19 should change global politics. The speed and scale of its transmission, and the severity of its impact is not, we know now, to our cost. As the virus rapidly tracks people vectors worldwide, the control of its impact is inextricably linked to the availability of resources and depth of governance. For these reasons, global leaders should focus on its impact among the most vulnerable, and in particular in Africa. Just three months ago, on 31 December 2019, Chinese authoritie ...

The Multidimensional Poverty Index provided for the UNDP (United Nations Developed Program) looks beyond monetary income and shows how poverty is the experience of multiple and simultaneous deprivations. People can fall behind in terms of health, education, and living standards, with challenges including lack of access to drinking water, sanitation, adequate nutrition, or primary education. Those who are deprived of at least one third of the index’s components are classified as mult ...

Almost 25 years have passed since the fourth world conference on women in Beijing in 1995. At that time, governments and women’s rights organizations adopted the Beijing Platform for Action to advance women’s rights globally. In November 2019, I attended the Paris Peace Forum panel discussion on ‘how to make the Generation Equality Forum of May-July 2020 a transformational moment’. Also in 2019, France and Mexico agreed to host the Generation Equality Forum in 2020. This Forum, conv ...

When I think about women’s empowerment, I see it as a constant process of attaining milestones in our lives as individuals man and woman, and as society. When I think of women’s empowerment in the context of Morocco, a host of questions come to mind. First, how is the ‘Moroccan woman’? In other words, to what extent are Moroccan women seeking to empower themselves? Does empowerment, mean the same thing to every Moroccan woman? To what extent is it self-empowerment? And what are the ...

En distinguant trois économistes reconnu(e)s pour leurs travaux sur l'approche de la pauvreté, les Nobel 2019 ont redonné ses lettres de noblesse à l'économie du développement. Mais, cette nomination c'est aussi la validation d'une méthode d'analyse, jusqu'alors essentiellement utilisée en médecine, méthode d'expérimentation aléatoire, encore appelée randomisation. C'est, donc, un nouveau tournant que prend la recherche économique, celui d'une démarche empirique commencée il y a une ...

As world leaders gathered this month for high-level talks at the 74th United Nations General Assembly, pressing global issues were at the forefront of discussions, including progress toward the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While taking stock of how far we have come in realizing commitments in key areas, including to end poverty and hunger, expand access to health, education, justice and jobs, promote inclusive and sustained economic growth, and protect o ...

Some of the papers in this special issue were initially presented at a September 2016 conference on Global Labor Markets organized by the IMF, Policy Center for the New South and Brunel University, while others were commissioned through a call for papers. Funding for this initiative was provided in part through the IF-DFID program on Macroeconomic Research in Low Income Countries. Views expressed in this introduction and in the papers are those of the authors and should not be ascri ...