The Middle East and North Africa region is expected to experience a return to low growth rates in 2024, with an anticipated 2.7% real GDP growth, followed by 4.2% in 2025. This marks a significant shift from the high growth rates seen in the decade before the global pandemic, as global economic growth slows for the third year in a row in 2024. According to a recent World Bank report, the bank forecasts that actual GDP growth for the region will be slightly lower than predicted, at 2.7% in 2024 and 4.2% in 2025.
The Gulf Cooperation Council countries are expected to see their economic growth rates rise slightly, with Bahrain forecasted to grow by 3.5% in 2024 and Kuwait growing by 3.1% in 2025. However, expectations for other countries in the region are lower, with Egypt projected to grow by only 1%, Algeria and Jordan each expected to grow by just over 1%, and Tunisia and Morocco projected to experience stagnant growth of around zero percent. On the other hand, Lebanon is projected to experience a contraction of -6%, while Iraq is expected to grow very slowly at only around -1%.
The ongoing conflict in Syria is also expected to have negative consequences for the region’s economy, with a contraction of -1.5%. The World Bank has warned that this conflict has resulted in massive loss of life, displacement, and unprecedented destruction of infrastructure, leading to widespread food and water insecurity and leaving almost all of Gaza’s population in poverty on the brink of famine. In fact, nearly one-third of Gazans are suffering from catastrophic hunger due to Israeli occupation policies that have severely limited access to resources such as water and electricity.
Despite these challenges, families must adapt to this situation or risk starvation for their children. Inflation rates are also falling across emerging market economies worldwide, including oil-exporting countries like those found in the Middle East North Africa region. After modest growth rates were recorded between 2018-19 (which was considered strong compared to other regions), it’s believed that real GDP will increase by about two percentage points over five years from now until post-pandemic times when oil exporting economies are expected to rebound again like Saudi Arabia (expected +5%) or Bahrain (expected +3%) while oil importing developing countries like Egypt (-3%) or Palestine (-6%) would continue their slow recovery process after years of devastating conflicts including war on Yemen which affected neighboring countries economically too but also created new problems such as humanitarian crisis resulting from displacement and poverty levels rising even more than they were before pandemic hit many households across Middle East North Africa Region.
It is important for policymakers across these regions