The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) office in North Africa initiated an expert group meeting in Morocco last week to tackle North Africa’s overreliance on hydrocarbons and its policy environment under the theme ‘Quality of institutions and structural transformation: distortions and resource allocation in North Africa’.

Since 2010, North Africa has experienced limited and volatile growth, owing to political instability, the lack of economic diversification and the strong dependence on primary sectors such as agriculture, mining and hydrocarbons. Uneca stated that this had led to the emergence of endemic unemployment, with an average unemployment rate of 12%, youth unemployment of 30% and female unemployment of more than 40%.

“North Africa is also characterised by relatively low labour productivity [of] between 6.23% and –1.2%, depending on countries, presenting a modest performance compared to other countries such as Turkey (8%) or India (16.8%) between 1994 and 2013.”

On September 26 and 27, governance and public policy experts, international organisation representatives and officials from member countries, namely Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, examined the relationship between the quality of institutions and structural transformation.

Participants studied the positive impact of improved resource allocations between economic sectors or within them, as well as the policies that should be implemented to achieve greater productivity.

“The study our office has carried out shows the existence of inefficient production factor allocation in North Africa. It reveals the sources of these distortions by observing the job and credit markets, as well as other factors, such as bureaucracy, corruption or the existence of privileges benefiting companies that are not necessarily the most productive or innovative ones on the market,” said Uneca North Africa office director Lilia Hachem Naas in her opening speech.

“Structural transformation is a development issue which requires a very thorough diagnosis. Public, fiscal and monetary policies play a key role in this area,” said Morocco High Commission for Planning forecasting and prospective studies director Ayache Khellaf. “When talking about structural transformation, and . . . when investing in human development, it is important not to forget the productive sectors to achieve stronger, job- creating growth,” he added.

This event aimed to encourage member countries to make better use of available data and gather the additional information required to draw policy guidelines and reforms that could offer suitable solutions to effect growth and job creation in North Africa.