This edition of the World Bank MENA Economic Update estimates that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s economies, which contracted by 3.8% in 2020, will grow by 2.8% in 2021. Overall, the output cost of COVID-19 so far in MENA is almost $200 billion, a number estimated by comparing the region’s forecast GDP level with a scenario where there was not any COVID.
Cite
Gatti, Roberta, Daniel Lederman, Rachel Yuting Fan, Arian Hatefi, Ha Nguyen, Anja Sautmann, Joseph Martin Sax, and Christina A. Wood. 2021. “Overconfident: How Economic and Health Fault Lines Left the Middle East and North Africa Ill-Prepared to Face COVID-19.” World Bank, MENA Economic Update (October 2021).