Ready for Work - An Analysis of Workforce Asymmetries in the Middle East and North Africa

The authors offer a diagnostic look at the current workforce development ecosystem in MENA, and present actionable policy recommendations to governments, the private sector and education providers – both in the region and in the United States. [...] Following the definition of workforce development adopted here (and specifically the need to address demand-side asymmetries in the workforce), this report also contains observations of interest to the private sector, both in the region and in the United States, especially in light of strong economic ties and mutual interests between the two. [...] The following chapters will consider questions raised regarding the education system and the private sector in aligning the supply and demand of the labor market. [...] As senior economist and Middle East expert Shanta Devarajan noted in his address, The Paradox of Higher Education in MENA, “only two or three Arab universities are in the list of the top 500 universities in the world (and none are in the top 200).” The results of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that the reg. [...] In the case of Jordan, King Abdullah II commissioned a national committee in 2015 to investigate the root causes of the shortcomings of the education system and set a roadmap for developing the country’s human resources with a focus on reforming the entire system.