The Arab banking sector continues to contribute significantly to the growth of Arab economies. The consolidated assets of the Arab banking sector amounted to around USD 3.4 trillion by mid- 2018, making up about 140 percent of the region’s GDP. While the total deposits of the Arab banking sector amounted to USD 2.1 trillion – the equivalent of 87 percent of the size of the Arab economy.

The Arab region has registered a remarkable trend of growing gains in educational attainment and more equitable access to formal education since the beginning of the millennium. School enrolment and literacy rates in the region have increased, with impressive progress towards gender parity in enrolment. Yet, with political instability and humanitarian crisis starting 2011, access to education has been a challenge and the quality of education has negatively affected youth.

Women in the Arab region make up almost half of the total population. However, and despite the improvements, a deep gender gap continues to hold back the region. Aside from the life expectancy and education attainment, men outpace women in nearly all human development sectors, including labor market participation, political participation, economic empowerment, and access to justice.

Health is one of the main pillars of development. Societies that suffer from diseases and epidemics cannot progress far in the development process. Better health contributes to well-being, sustainable development and economic growth. While the third goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly focuses on health, there are at least 5 other goals that are health-related.

Demographic trends and natural resources have long affected the Arab region’s labor market. With the protracted conflicts that hit the region since 2011, major repercussions have been witnessed in several Arab countries, such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Palestine and Lebanon. Recently, more emergent challenges are facing the Arab region resulting from the fluctuating oil prices and Coronavirus outbreak along with different structural challenges in the economies. Despite the widening disparities, the Arab countries continue to share common labor market features and face similar challenges. The challenges that mark the labor market are in general related to low labor force participation, especially among women, high unemployment rates, especially among youth, large but decreasing shares of public sector employment, and high prevalence of informal employment. 

Macroeconomic performance across the Arab countries tend to diverge between major oil exporting countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and other countries in the region, especially those inflicted by conflict. In recent years, heightened social unrest, political uncertainty and violent armed conflicts have contributed to a pronounced deterioration in the macroeconomic performance in a handful of countries including Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Palestine, and given that almost 29 million people, equivalent to 7.1 percent of the population, being forcibly displaced in 2017. With the oil price shock in 2014, several countries have had to take measures to maintain fiscal budgets under control, privatize national assets and facilitate private sector development away from the oil industry. However, despite recent modest growth, fiscal deficits are slowly declining, leading to a sharp increase in government debts.