Narrow Your Choices

Refine By Countries

Refine By Series

Refine By Language

Refine By Date

—

Refine By IMF Taxonomy

Refine By JEL Taxonomy

Refine by LOC Taxonomy

Refine By THEMA Taxonomy

  • Print
  • Save

Social Science > Demography

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 100 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Middle East and Central Asia x
Clear All Modify Search
Cover Gender Notes
Why a Gender Lens Matters: Unlocking Solutions to Macroeconomic Challenges
Lisa L Kolovich
,
Monique Newiak
,
Diego B. P. Gomes
,
Jiajia Gu
,
Vivian Malta
, and
Jorge Mondragon
As governments design policy packages to address the main macroeconomic questions of our times, putting a gender lens on macroeconomics can amplify reform impact. In this note, IMF staff’s analysis has called for attention to strengthening legal rights, gendered aspects of fiscal policy, and enhancing women’s work–life choices, including through structural reforms. Capacity development to assist member countries in their reform efforts has grown and, so far, has centered on integrating gender into public financial management systems through gender budgeting.
Keywords:
gender lens; macroeconomic policy; macro-gender tools; gender indicators; capacity development; IMF gender note; gender toolkit; IMF gender Note 2024/003; IMF staff calculation; Gender inequality; Gender diversity; Women; Labor force participation; Labor markets; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Islamic Republic of Mauritania: Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
This paper presents Islamic Republic of Mauritania’s poverty reduction and growth strategy. With the second Strategy for Accelerated Growth and Shared Prosperity (SCAPP) Action Plan 2021–2025, Mauritania is embarking on a new phase in the implementation of its three-five-year strategy to achieve the vision “The Mauritania we want in 2030.” Mauritania, through its commitment to the implementation of the SCAPP, marks its willingness to initiate a large-scale economic, social and environmental transition, on the path of inclusive growth, economic diversification, social cohesion, respect for fundamental rights and human dignity, peace and respect for the environment. The first Action Plan 2016–2020 demonstrated that the implementation of the SCAPP was able to record convincing results. However, some of the objectives could not be achieved, in particular because of the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, which severely affected the world economy, and therefore the Mauritanian economy, which resulted in the emergence of new priorities. This Action Plan 2021–2025 takes into account the lessons learned from the implementation of the first and implements the necessary measures to support the country in its economic recovery and respond to the decisive challenges of the next 5 years, which will be decisive in the preparation of the third Action Plan and the achievement of the 2030 Goals.
Keywords:
Ministry of petroleum; Ministry of hydraulics; ministry of Livestock; Ministry of employment; Ministry of communication; Ministry of equipment; Ministry of trade; Infrastructure; Global; West Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Adding Fuel to the Fire: How Weather Shocks Intensify Conflict
Sidra Rehman
and
Laura Jaramillo
Do weather shocks worsen conflict around the world? To answer this question, this paper uses an innovative dataset created by using georeferencing to match weather and conflict data at the subregional level on a monthly frequency across 168 countries over 2013 to 2022.The empirical results show that higher temperature exacerbate conflict where it already exists. Estimations indicate that, in a high emissions scenario and all else equal, by 2060 conflict deaths as a share of the population for a median country facing conflict could increase by 12.3 percent due to rising temperatures. These findings underscore the importance of integrating climate resilience into peace and security efforts and designing climate adaptation policies that support conflict prevention and resolution.
Keywords:
conflict; temperature; precipitation; climate change; weather shock; conflict intensity; IMF working paper No. 24/112; impact of weather; precipitation shock; Natural disasters; Food security; East Africa; Middle East
Cover Analytical Notes
Towards an Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable National Pension System in Iraq
International Monetary Fund
,
World Bank
, and
International Labour Office
A pension system is at the heart of social protection. By ensuring income security for older persons and other vulnerable groups, it prevents poverty, reduces inequality, and facilitates consumption smoothing. A pension system also affects the working population’s labor market choices and has important fiscal implications. Iraq’s current pension system is highly fragmented, inequitable, and inefficient. First, it fails to provide adequate income protection to most of Iraqi’s old age population and other vulnerable groups, such as survivors and persons with disability. Second, the public sector pension is already putting substantial pressure on the budget and is potentially unsustainable given the projected acceleration of the total pension bill due to recent policy changes. Third, it sets an uneven playing field between the public and private sectors, contributing to the continued expansion of an already outsized civil service and holding back much-needed economic diversification and private sector growth. Thus, a comprehensive pension reform is urgently needed. Based on collaboration between the IMF, ILO and the World Bank this policy note aims to: 1) Provide an assessment of the existing public and private pension system across the four dimensions: fiscal sustainability; labor market implications; coverage; and adequacy of benefits. 2) Develop and propose options to adjust the pension system with a view to making it fiscally sustainable, more inclusive and adequate, and conducive to private sector development and labor market formalization. 3) Provide a basis to engage key stakeholders—including workers, employers organizations and the civil society—on strategies to achieve a more inclusive system, importantly by including workers in the informal economy, female workers, workers with disabilities, and other disadvantaged groups.
Keywords:
Pension system; Pension Reform; Social protection; Fiscal sustainability; ILO team; scheme reserve; ILO publication; IMF team; member country government; Pension spending; Pensions; Public sector; Aging; Middle East; North Africa; East Africa; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Political Fragility: Coups d’État and Their Drivers
Aliona Cebotari
,
Enrique Chueca-Montuenga
,
Yoro Diallo
,
Yunsheng Ma
,
Rima A Turk
,
Weining Xin
, and
Harold Zavarce
The paper explores the drivers of political fragility by focusing on coups d’état as symptomatic of such fragility. It uses event studies to identify factors that exhibit significantly different dynamics in the runup to coups, and machine learning to identify these stressors and more structural determinants of fragility—as well as their nonlinear interactions—that create an environment propitious to coups. The paper finds that the destabilization of a country’s economic, political or security environment—such as low growth, high inflation, weak external positions, political instability and conflict—set the stage for a higher likelihood of coups, with overlapping stressors amplifying each other. These stressors are more likely to lead to breakdowns in political systems when demographic pressures and underlying structural weaknesses (especially poverty, exclusion, and weak governance) are present or when policies are weaker, through complex interactions. Conversely, strengthened fundamentals and macropolicies have higher returns in structurally fragile environments in terms of staving off political breakdowns, suggesting that continued engagement by multilateral institutions and donors in fragile situations is likely to yield particularly high dividends. The model performs well in predicting coups out of sample, having predicted a high probability of most 2020-23 coups, including in the Sahel region.
Keywords:
Fragility; Drivers of Fragility; Coup d’État; Machine Learning; coup dynamics; event study result; coup probability; probability of coup; IMF working paper 24/34; Fiscal stance; Income; Sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East and Central Asia; Caribbean
Cover IMF How To Notes
How to Assess Spending Needs of the Sustainable Development Goals: The Third Edition of the IMF SDG Costing Tool
Piergiorgio M Carapella
,
Ms. Tewodaj Mogues
,
Julieth C Pico-Mejia
, and
Mauricio Soto
This note provides a technical overview and description of the 3rd edition of the IMF SDG costing tool that estimates the additional spending needs to achieve a strong performance in selected SDGs for human capital development (health and education) and physical capital development (infrastructure), in particular, water and sanitation, electricity, and roads. The 3rd edition includes data and methodological updates to, but generally remains faithful to the original approach described in, Gaspar et al. (2019). Globally, additional spending needed to achieve a strong performance in the selected SDGs in 2030 amounts to US$3.0 trillion (3.4 percent of 2030 world GDP). Estimated at 16.1 percent of 2030 LIDC GDP, the average additional SDG cost of this income group is significantly higher than in EMEs, who face additional spending amounting to 4.8 percentage points of their GDP in 2030. In contrast to EMEs and LIDCs, the additional cost for AEs is low, under 0.2 percent of their 2030 GDP.
Keywords:
SDGs; Sustainable Development Goals; expenditure; spending needs; cost; health; education; water; sanitation; electricity; roads; SDG spending; edition SDG; desk estimate; costing tool; Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); Health care spending; Infrastructure; Global; Caribbean; Central Asia and the Caucasus; Middle East; North Africa
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Somalia: Technical Assistance Report-National Accounts Statistics Mission
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
This Technical Assistance report on Somalia highlights National Accounts Statistics Mission. The mission’s purpose was to provide technical assistance to the Somalia National Bureau of Statistics (SNBS) in conducting a comprehensive gross domestic product (GDP) revision to incorporate latest source data and methods and to update the base year from 2017 to 2022. The mission assisted the SNBS to produce updated annual GDP time series up to 2022. New data sources were incorporated and the base year for constant prices updated from 2017 to 2022. There is a continuing need to improve source data. While the GDP compilation system makes good use of the limited available data, the foundation for the national accounts remains weak. SNBS will conduct a Business Census in respect of 2023, with implementation gearing up at the end of 2023. It also plans to conduct the first Population Census since 1985, which will also support improvements, especially if designed to provide measures of the informal sector. To support progress toward objectives, the mission recommended a detailed action plan with the priority recommendations carrying particular weight to make headway in improving the completeness of Somalia’s national accounts statistics.
Keywords:
GDP; GDP by expenditure; GDP at constant prices; rebased; comprehensive revisions; household consumption.; compilation system; SNBS website; GDP data; population census result; IMF surveillance; IMF's statistics department; agriculture census; Somalia GDP estimate; Imports; Household consumption; Consumption
Cover IMF Working Papers
Estimating Digital Infrastructure Investment Needs to Achieve Universal Broadband
Edward Oughton
,
Mr. David Amaglobeli
, and
Mr. Mariano Moszoro
We develop a detailed model to evaluate the necessary investment requirements to achieve affordable universal broadband. The results indicate that approximately $418 billion needs to be mobilized to connect all unconnected citizens globally (targeting 40-50 GB/Month per user with 95 percent reliability). The bulk of additional investment is for emerging market economies (73 percent) and low-income developing countries (24 percent). We also find that if the data consumption level is lowered to 10-20 GB/Month per user, the total cost decreases by up to about half, whereas raising data consumption to 80-100 GB/Month per user leads to a cost increase of roughly 90 percent relative to the baseline. Moreover, a 40 percent cost decrease occurs when varying the peak hour quality of service level from the baseline 95 percent reliability, to only 50 percent reliability. To conclude, broadband policy assessments should be explicit about the quantity of data and the reliability of service provided to users. Failure to do so will lead to inaccurate estimates and, ultimately, to poor broadband policy decisions.
Keywords:
Broadband; Digital Infrastructure; Public Investment; Sustainable Development Goals; cost decrease; investment requirement; infrastructure investment; cost sensitivity; data consumption; policy assessment; estimation metrics; cost driver; data traffic; infrastructure cost modeling; Digitalization; Infrastructure; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global; Caribbean; Central Asia and the Caucasus; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
Private Savings and COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mr. Boileau Loko
,
Nelie Nembot
, and
Mr. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro
The paper reexamines the main private savings determinants in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), followed by an analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on private savings in SSA and other country groupings. Using an unbalanced panel data from 1983−2021 for 31 SSA economies, the paper finds that real per capita economic growth remains a key historical determinant of private savings in the region. In contrast with other regions, private saving rates have not increased during COVID-19 in SSA. Instead, COVID-19 deaths in our estimations are significantly associated with a decline in private savings in SSA. Robustness checks and a descriptive analysis of household surveys during the pandemic corroborate those results.
Keywords:
Private Savings; Sub-Saharan Africa; COVID-19; Economic Growth; savings determinants in SSA; pandemic impact; preventive measure; SSA economy; robustness check; Income; Estimation techniques; Middle East; North Africa
Cover Technical Notes and Manuals
IMF Engagement on Pension Issues in Surveillance and Program Work
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
and
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is increasingly involved in offering policy advice on public pension issues to member countries. Public pension spending is important from both fiscal and welfare perspectives. Pension policy and its reforms can have significant fiscal and distribution implications, can influence labor supply and labor demand decisions, and may impact consumption and savings behavior. This technical note provides guidance on assessing public pension systems’ macrocriticality, i.e., sustainability, adequacy, and efficiency; it also discusses the issues and policy trade-offs to be considered when designing responses aiming to address these dimensions of the pension system. The paper emphasizes the importance of taking a long-term, comprehensive perspective when evaluating public pension spending and providing policy advice. Where feasible, reforms should be gradual and transparent to allow individuals ample time to adjust their work and savings decisions and to facilitate consumption smoothing over their lifecycle to avoid poverty in old age. It is also important to ensure that pension systems’ design and reforms do not lead to undesirable impacts in other policy areas including general tax compliance, health insurance coverage, labor force participation among older workers, or labor market informality. The paper emphasizes the importance country-specific social and economic objectives and constraints, as well as political economy realities – factors that can determine whether a pension reform is a success or failure.
Keywords:
Fiscal Policy; Social Protection; Pensions; Fiscal Sustainability; Defined Benefit; Defined Contribution; pension policy; policy engagement; Policy advice; General consideration; pension provision; C. IMF-supported program; Pension spending; Pension reform; Aging; Europe; Africa; Global; Southeast Asia; Eastern Europe