SHORT VERSION Examining Racism and Discrimination in the Middle East and North Africa Region A World Bank Quality of Life Study in MENA Countries © 2024 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data included in this work and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information, or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, or conclusions set forth. 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Cover and interior design: Sarah Alameddine ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study is the joint product of the Middle East and North Africa Vice-Presidency, the Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice, and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank. It was developed by a World Bank Group team led by Mirjam Kalle, Salma Al-Shami, Alan Fuchs, Minh Cong Nguyen and Danielle Venn. Members of the core team included Chinedu Temple Obi, Maro Youssef, Jeff Woodham, Agathe Marie Christien, Rachel Anne Furlow and Sayli Sharad Javadekar. This endeavor would not have been possible without the initiative and leadership of Nadir Mohammed. Overall guidance for the preparation of the report was provided by Johannes Hoogeveen, Pia Peeters, Senait Nigiru Assefa, Salman Zaidi, Ayat Soliman, Meskerem Brhane, Stefan Koeberle, Louise J. Cord and Ferid Belhaj. The team is particularly grateful for the support of the State and Peacebuilding Fund, the Human Rights, Inclusion and Empowerment Trust Fund and the MENA Antiracism Task Force at the World Bank. The team would like to thank the following colleagues for their valuable comments and guidance at various stages of the development of this study: Zeina Afif, Lelav Ahmed Amedi, Jose Cuesta, Amal Faltas, Million Fikre, Roberta Gatti, Noushig Kaloustian, Sarah G. Michael, Helidah Refiloe Atieno Ogude, Onur Ozlu, Niyati Shah, Yara Salem, Sonya M. Sultan, Sharad Alan Tandon, Tara Vishwanath, and Charlotte Vuyiswa McClain-Nhlapo. The team would like to thank Lourdes Anducta, Nadege Mertus, Lanto Ramanankasina and Miravola Randria for the organizational support and Sarah Alameddine for the artwork, design and layout of the report. ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS CERD Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ESF Environmental and Social Framework ESP Environment and Social Policy ESSs Environmental and Social Standards FCV Fragility, Conflict and Violence FGM/C Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting GBV Gender-Based Violence GCC Gulf Cooperation Council GDP Gross Domestic Product IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee ICERD International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination IDP Internally Displaced Person IOM International Organization for Migration IPV Intimate Partner Violence ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria LMIC Lower Middle-Income Country MENA Middle East and North Africa NGO Non-Governmental Organizations OECD Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development PMF Popular Mobilization Forces UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees WBG World Bank Group WDR World Development Report WHO World Health Organization EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Racism and discrimination remain critical barriers to social inclusion and equity with detrimental effects for individuals, societies, and economies. Persistent discrimination and exclusion of marginalized groups reduces innovation and opportunities for growth, impedes sustainable development, and exacerbates drivers of fragility and conflict. It affects individuals’ access to markets, services and spaces, hinders their full realization of rights, and reduces their wellbeing and quality of life. Strengthening the focus on people who have been excluded and building socially sustainable communities and societies requires more systematic and nuanced understanding of racial discrimination and intersecting factors of exclusion in different contexts. Despite growing evidence, understanding the prevalence and consequences of racial discrimination in the Middle East and North Africa region has been hampered by a lack of quantitative data. Existing research provides preliminary, and often piecemeal, evidence on how racial discrimination hinders sustainable development in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) region, through its impacts in the labor market, access to public services, and in the political sphere. However, a lack of high-quality quantitative data has impeded research about different types of discrimination, comparisons across a wide range of racialized groups within and across MENA countries, and analysis of the relationship between racial discrimination and wellbeing in the region. To address these gaps and provide the basis for policy dialogue and operational engagement, the World Bank launched an internet-based survey in 2022 in seven MENA countries. The Quality of Life Survey asked respondents about their experiences of interpersonal discrimination and their subjective wellbeing, and collected data on economic, social and demographic characteristics in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The survey methods were designed to address some of the challenges of collecting data on race and discrimination in the MENA region, including targeting particular racial/racialized groups and eliciting responses on sensitive questions. The study is based on the responses of over 16,000 adults across the region. To supplement survey findings, the World Bank added a qualitative component to the study based on semi-structured interviews. The processes through which race has been historically constructed in MENA countries are complex and context specific. In this study, racial discrimination was defined based on the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which recognizes that the basis of racial discrimination can vary across different contexts. The study examined experiences of discrimination across a range of racial/racialized groups (that were different for each country) defined by racial identity, color, and migration and displacement status. Various indicators of discrimination were used, ranging from direct measures of interpersonal discrimination (where racial beliefs are externalized in interactions between and among individuals) to economic and social indicators that reflect potential structural and institutional discrimination (discriminatory policies within and among institutions, including firms, markets, schools, and public agencies). 5 An emergent approach allowed for respondents’ own perceptions of discrimination in addition to reported discrimination outcomes. In the survey, respondents were able to report their experiences of different forms of discrimination, but also to indicate what they perceive as the main cause of the discrimination that they face. Respondents’ perceptions of why they face discrimination differ significantly between pooled citizen respondent groups, and pooled migrant and refugee groups. While income was the most common reason given by all groups of citizen respondents for experiencing chronic discrimination, race was by far the most common reason for discrimination reported by migrant respondents. Race also ranked alongside gender and income level as the most common reasons for discrimination among refugee respondents. To supplement findings from the survey, interviews were conducted in an open-ended manner to give voice to respondents’ experiences and explanations for discrimination. The semi-structured approach allowed for discussion of emergent themes that the interview respondents brought up themselves, including overlapping factors of discrimination. Through an intersectional lens, the study identified how racial/racialized identity, combined with income, gender, age, and legal status, amplifies experiences with discrimination. Concerned with identifying how individuals’ combined identities cause them to experience inequalities, an intersectional lens helped assess how socioeconomic status (income), gender, and age intersect with racial/racialized identity to exacerbate or mitigate unequal outcomes and vulnerabilities. Existing studies on MENA with an intersectional approach have tended to use gender as the master category, but not racial/racialized identity. Multiple studies on MENA countries have looked at gender in concert with displacement status to highlight the additional vulnerabilities that displaced women face in comparison to men or in concert with age. Many survey respondents identified with more than one racial/racialized group. Around 90 percent of Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents, for example, selected more than one racial/racialized group. In most cases, respondents also identified as Arab citizens. That many survey respondents identified with more than one racial/racialized group illustrates that the processes through which race has been constructed in MENA countries do not necessarily reflect Western understandings of race and racism. Examining different racial/racialized groups in each country and allowing for multiple identifications reflects the complexity of defining race and racial/racialized groups in MENA countries but limits the comparability of results across countries to some extent. Building on more recent debates in MENA countries that recognize the local and regional historical trajectories as a continuing source of racism and discrimination in the region, this study aims to contribute to discussions addressing racism beyond external frameworks. Overall, migrant and refugee survey respondents experienced far more discrimination than citizens in every country surveyed. On average across all survey countries, three-quarters of migrant respondents and two-thirds of refugee respondents had been the victim of a racial slur, and 60–70 percent experienced chronic interpersonal discrimination. By contrast, around 30–40 percent of citizen respondents experienced interpersonal discrimination. Migrant and refugee respondents also typically reported worse outcomes than citizens on a range of economic and social indicators, consistent with structural and institutional discrimination. With only a few exceptions, migrant and refugee respondents were more likely than citizen respondents to be unemployed, live in overcrowded housing, have low levels of education, low income and 6 experience financial stress. Refugee respondents in different countries tend to report facing institutional discrimination on the same indicators while cross-country comparisons reveal there is more variation in how migrant respondents encounter institutional discrimination. Despite this variation in the specific type of institutional discrimination faced by either refugee or migrant respondents, there is much less variation in the degree of institutional discrimination. When comparing citizen, migrant, and refugee survey respondent groups, then belonging to more than one disadvantaged group appeared to amplify the likelihood of discrimination. Some respondents faced multiple disadvantages that were associated with discrimination rates of 80 – 90 percent. The groups with the highest rates of interpersonal discrimination in the surveyed countries were young, Black/Afro-origin migrants and refugees, and those with the lowest rates of discrimination were older citizens. Migrants and refugees who were female, older, non- Black/Afro-origin or from higher income households still tended to experience more discrimination than citizens. In this regard, migrant/refugee status appeared to trump demographic characteristics in explaining the prevalence of discrimination. Among citizens, both interpersonal and institutional discrimination were prevalent only in two countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV). Violence both can exacerbate pre- existing marginalization along racial/racialized lines and create new vulnerable groups that are targeted disproportionally because of their racial/racialized identity. In both countries, not only are some racial/racialized groups more likely than the national respondent average and the Arab citizen group to report being chronically treated as inferior. They are also more likely to report experiencing poorer economic outcomes and having access to lower quality services. This is particularly true for Black/Afro-origin and IDP populations. Interpersonal rather than institutional discrimination based on racial/racialized identity is the more prevalent form among surveyed countries in MENA. In six out of seven surveyed countries, at least one racial/racialized group reported experiencing a form of interpersonal discrimination at a rate greater than that of both the national respondent and Arab citizen average. What is notable across MENA countries, is that significant proportions of all surveyed groups, including Arab citizen respondents, report several poor economic outcomes. Upward of 40 percent of respondents in each racial/racialized group in each country said that they experienced some form of deprivation and not having enough income to meet their needs. One explanation of this finding may be that the economic and infrastructural hardships that have plagued these countries are affecting all citizens. Nonetheless, the little variation seen in measures of institutional discrimination among citizen groups does not make it less important, but rather more difficult to address to discrimination. At its core, discrimination is about unjust imbalances that pervade interactions among individuals, and between individuals and their private and public institutions. It is frequently numerical minority groups that are most disaffected compared with the numerical majority. With respect to interpersonal discrimination, the MENA region is not an exception to this pattern. Several cases do serve as a reminder that it is not to be taken for granted, particularly as it relates to institutional disenfranchisement. Furthermore, as illustrated by the emergent and intersectional approach, various aspects of identity can be more or less salient in lived social interactions or in the allocation of resources and access to services, depending on the respective local realities. 7 Across all racial/racialized groups, respondents who had experienced interpersonal discrimination had much worse subjective wellbeing than those who had not experienced discrimination. For instance, across all surveyed countries, average life satisfaction was 1–1.5 points lower (on a scale of 1 to 10) for those who had been the victim of a racial slur. This result held across all racial/racialized groups, in every surveyed country, and for a range of wellbeing measures, including life satisfaction, mental wellbeing, feelings of resilience and purpose, and perceived personal safety. Experiencing discrimination was still associated with lower levels of wellbeing, even after controlling for the demographic, economic and social characteristics included in the survey. Part of the gap in wellbeing between those who experienced discrimination and those who did not was because respondents who experienced interpersonal discrimination also typically had poorer outcomes on economic and social indicators that are associated lower levels of wellbeing. These included unemployment, poverty, financial stress, and poor health, which in themselves may have been the result of structural or institutional discrimination. However, even after controlling for these factors, experiencing discrimination remains associated with significantly lower wellbeing in all countries. Context-specific assessments and tailored solutions are key to addressing racism and intersecting forms of discrimination in MENA countries. Racism takes different forms in different MENA countries, ranging from demeaning stereotypes and prejudices, discriminatory attitudes and behavior in everyday interpersonal interactions, exclusion, marginalization and impoverishment, to structural racism and discrimination enshrined in legal frameworks, institutions and policies. Racism also intersects with other forms of discrimination based on gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship status, class, or age which makes particular groups even more vulnerable. Building on the WBG’s commitments, the study underlines the importance of promoting inclusion and combating racial discrimination to improve the quality of life for all population groups. It specifically calls for targeted solutions for migrants and displaced persons, recognizing the high levels of racial discrimination against these groups in the region. Additionally, gender as an intersecting factor compounds effects of exclusion, illustrating the linkages between discrimination and violence among some populations and underlining the need for integrated approaches. Amplifying the voices of affected populations and fostering their meaningful participation in the design and implementation of programs and policies is a key recommendation of the report. 8 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND THE WORLD BANK'S MANDATE Addressing racial discrimination is fundamental to achieving the World Bank Group's (WBG) vision of creating a world free of poverty on a livable planet. Urgent action is needed to address the overlapping crises of poverty and economic distress, and global challenges, including rising fragility and conflict (World Bank, 2022). Efforts to better understand and address racial discrimination and intersecting factors for exclusion are at the core of the sustainable development goals. “Social inclusion is the right thing to do, and it also makes g ood economic sense� (World Bank, n.d.). The persistent discrimination and exclusion of marginalized groups is costly, both to peoples and economies, hindering sustainable development, and exacerbating drivers of fragility, conflict and violence. Exclusion of specific population groups impedes innovation and opportunities for growth, while affecting human development outcomes, wellbeing, and the full realization of rights. The World Bank is therefore committed to promoting inclusion and addressing racial discrimination through the projects, programs, and investments that it finances to contribute effectively toward increasing opportunities for all groups in societies to fully participate in political, economic, and social life. In line with its Anti-Racism Charter, the WBG commits to zero tolerance of racism and racial discrimination in all forms and contexts (World Bank, 2021b). While there is no development framework specific to addressing racial discrimination, World Bank reports offer guidance on considerations and approaches. The 2006 World Development Report (WDR) on Equity and Development was seminal to the study of racism in at least two ways: (i) it brought equity1 into the discussion of poverty alleviation; and (ii) it highlighted the need to not only look at intra-country differences but also inter-country differences in wealth and opportunities (World Bank, 2006). It recognizes that addressing discrimination in all its forms—racial and otherwise—is requisite for equity, and equity is necessary for long-term prosperity. Building upon the 2006 WDR, the 2013 report Inclusion Matters: The Foundation for Shared Prosperity introduced the Social Inclusion Framework, which outlines how to address problems caused by racism. Based on this framework, Barron et al. define social inclusion as the process of improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of people disadvantaged on the basis of their identity to participate in three realms, namely markets, services, and spaces, which allows all members of society to thrive (Barron et al., 2023). A key WBG strategic pillar in addressing global development challenges involves increasing economic opportunities that renew the social contract by promoting inclusion. In various regions of the world, however, the trade of free speech and various methods of holding governments accountable, such as elections and protests in return for security and basic services, have led some to caution how the social contract can dissolve instead into the “authoritarian bargain� (Yousef, 2004). An inclusive society requires voice and participation by all groups, including traditionally marginalized groups. In this regard, Barron et al. particularly highlighted the need for process legitimacy in a way that decisions are considered fair, credible and acceptable by all members and groups in society. Regarding specific challenges faced by migrants and refugees, 1 Even though discussions of racism have since evolved to distinguish equity from equality and to adopt a more holistic conceptualization of race, the report remains seminal by recognizing racism as an obstacle to development. 9 the most recent 2023 World Development Report on Migrants, Refugees, and Societies also underlines the importance of listening to “voices that are currently underreprese nted in many policy debates� (World Bank, 2023a)—a recommendation that is at the center of this study. Racism and discrimination are symptoms of a broken social contract globally and merit further consideration in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. As evidenced in several other contexts, racially based exclusion in MENA can fuel social unrest and distrust in institutions, and exacerbate conflicts and violence (McCord and Ensminger, 2003). This often manifests itself in diminished access to employment opportunities, education, housing, and health care, among other basic services, and results in decreased life satisfaction, high poverty rates, high rates of gender-based violence (GBV), exploitation and abuse. The expanding size of the global work force, transformative technologies, human mobility, and labor market shifts have changed the economic landscape in ways that have unequally benefited various groups of people (World Bank, 2019b). This is particularly important in the MENA region, a region that, by some accounts, is the most unequal in the world (Alvaredo, Assoud and Piketty, 2018). Yet, there is a need for more systematic understandings on if and how racial discrimination renders some members of society more unequal than others and how different factors of discrimination intersect, including gender, age, religion, nationality, disability, citizenship status, educational background, and socio- economic status. Through an intersectional lens, it becomes possible to identify how individuals’ combined, inseparable identities cause them to experience systematic inequalities that might otherwise be missed. This analytical work aims to create an entry point at the project level and country programs to engage with client countries on racism and discrimination in the MENA region. Persistent challenges, compounded by overlapping crises in several MENA countries, can serve as an opportunity to focus on rebuilding more inclusive systems and resilience to future shocks. Improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity requires addressing the root causes of discrimination and exclusion in MENA countries through a range of instruments, including policy dialogue, lending and technical assistance. In addition, the Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) serves as an important entry point to address discrimination of project-affected individuals, groups, and workers, and enhance their development opportunities.2 Given the heterogeneity of countries and affected populations in the region, as well as intersecting factors of discrimination, future engagement requires context-specific, tailored solutions. Building on the study findings, this report entails a set of recommendations for further engagement with regard to data and knowledge, policy dialogue, and operations. The WBG is uniquely positioned to contribute to knowledge generation and awareness raising through innovative data collection and analysis. Acknowledging the heterogeneity of countries and affected populations, context- specific diagnostics are required to develop tailored guidance on addressing racism and 2 Through: (i) the ESF Vision Statement; (ii) the Environment and Social Policy (ESP); (iii) the Environmental and Social Standards (ESSs); and (iv) the Directive on Addressing Risks and Impacts on Disadvantaged or Vulnerable Individuals or Groups, the World Bank has strengthened its commitment to working against prejudice and discrimination of project-affected individuals, groups, and workers, and toward enhancing their development opportunities. In the updated World Bank Directive on Addressing Risks and Impacts on Disadvantage or Vulnerable Individuals or Groups, “race� has been added to the representative list of individuals or groups that may be disadvantaged or vulnerable, to require consideration of racial discrimination and exclusion when applying the ESF in client countries. 10 discrimination in MENA. Acknowledging country-driven steps to address racism and discrimination, the WBG can work with client countries through policy dialogue and technical assistance to support implementation of existing legal and policy frameworks, and to foster special measures to eliminate racism and discrimination. Through a range of instruments, efforts to enhance inclusion and quality of life are integrated into operational engagement across sectors, including educational programs, capacity building, service provision and targeted programming for vulnerable populations, including disadvantaged racial/racialized groups. Meaningful engagement with and participation of affected populations in the design, implementation and evaluation of the programs remains essential. Aligned with the WBG Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020–2025, and given the study findings, addressing the linkages between discrimination and FCV more systematically is key for conflict prevention, resilience, and recovery in the region. 1.2 THE STUDY OF RACISM IN MENA In the MENA region, the study of racial discrimination is expanding in scope, and racism is increasingly a framework adopted to examine and explain adverse or unequal outcomes. In reviewing more than 100 academic journals published between 1970 and 2019, the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative found only about 40 articles on the topic of race. Among them, most focused on just a few countries (Middle East Pedagogy Initiative, 2020; Oczelik, 2021). But as the past decade has witnessed discussions of racism globally (re)ignited by violence against racial/racialized groups, MENA scholars and practitioners increasingly have engaged in the conversation. Beginning in 2020, race and racism formed the central topic of MENA-specific compilations of work in multiple publications (Babül et al, 2021; El Zein, 2021; Menin, 2020; Ozcelik, 2021). Discussions have expanded beyond historical, often externally-imposed, racialization and racism, with more recent studies beginning to "recognize the local and regional lineages of empire and colonialism that continue to dispossess and discriminate racially in the region" (El Zein, 2021). Often in response to criticisms that rebuke externally (non-MENA) developed frameworks into which the study of racism in the region is retrofitted, studies have also begun to challenge "exceptionality" arguments and adopt transregional perspectives (Hall, 2021). Looking at the "Global South" can unearth new information and ideas from outside Western contexts and contribute to discussions addressing racism. One of the key issues raised by the study of racial discrimination in the MENA region is the extent to which citizens have common understandings of “race� or “racial groups.� Globally, one of the enduring legacies of both colonialism and the slave trade is their artificial creation of categories of individuals—or “races�—to justify one group’s subjugation of another group. Consequently, some individuals reject this racialization, or imposition of a racial category onto their identity. Alternatively, often in response to concerted political efforts to homogenize a population, groups that found themselves the victims of these efforts instead embraced their racial identity. Race thus became the basis around which movements to reclaim confiscated rights were, and continue to be, organized in such countries. As such, to both recognize the legacies of colonialism and the slave trade on the one hand, and to respect the agency of those who do identify as a racial group on the other, this study uses the term racial/racialized groups instead of “races.� 11 Despite a rich and growing body of mostly qualitative, case study-based work, discussions in MENA about racism have not yet risen to the top of national conversations. In MENA, racial discrimination remains a socially sensitive topic deeply entrenched in complicated histories of slavery, colonialism, identity politics and migration. Some contend that an unintended consequence of dismissing Western-dominant approaches to studying racism is that it has stymied attempts to bring the discussion to the forefront (El Zein, 2021). This is further complicated by lingering pan-Arab and nationalist sentiments that promoted policies of cultural and ethnic homogenization, mistaking forced assimilation for unity. While challenges to these arguments are now emerging, such factors have contributed to limited awareness, knowledge and even denial that racism exists. Existing research provides preliminary (though not systematic) evidence of how racism impedes sustainable development in MENA. Racism has been shown to affect all three domains identified in the World Bank’s Social Inclusion Framework—markets, services, and spaces—and adversely impacts the quality of life of those victimized. Most widely documented is the prevalence and effect of racial discrimination in the labor market. In several countries across MENA, certain racial/racialized groups experience higher unemployment than the general population (Grewal, 2018; Farid, 2020; MRGI, n.d.1). Occupational segregation contributes to exclusion of some racial/racialized groups from preferred jobs, often forcing them to work in the informal sector (Abdullah et al., 2018; MRGI, n.d.1 and n.d.2). Those working in the informal sector are more likely to be subject to dangerous working conditions, employer harassment, wage theft, or a lack of opportunity for promotion (Abdullah et al., 2018). Certain racial/racialized groups also face challenges starting and growing businesses, enforcing property rights, and accessing high quality housing. Business ownership can be impeded by a lack of resources to pay processing fees, discrimination by administrative officials, and lack of identity documentation, which can make it difficult or impossible to obtain permits required to operate formal businesses (Meshkal, 2019; MGRI, n.d.2). Some countries require that business be conducted officially in the state language, which can limit minorities that speak different languages (Taneja, 2011). Unequal access to land for either personal or business use represents another challenge. In some countries, racial and ethnic minority groups are either not allowed to own land or face discrimination from landowners when attempting to purchase land (Chapman and Taneja, 2008). Inheritance customs prevent women in some racialized groups from inheriting land (OHCHR, 2018), while historical displacement of certain groups continues to impact current land and property rights (Al-Bordeny, 2019; Equal Rights Trust, 2018; Melik, 2012; HRW, 2004). Anecdotal evidence suggests that certain racial/racialized groups in some MENA countries live in poor and overcrowded housing (MTGI, n.d.1 and 2; Abdullah et al., 2018). Some racial/racialized groups have also been found to be systematically excluded from accessing public services including education, health, water, sanitation, and justice. Lack of formal identification, language barriers, and unequal investment in schools and educational infrastructure leave some racial/racialized groups with no, or diminished, access to public education compared with citizens in majoritarian groups (UNESCO, 2020; ReliefWeb, 2015; Taneja, 2011). Dropout rates are often high among racial- and ethnic-minority youth in the MENA region because they can face harassment and bullying from both teachers and other students while in school. Similarly, deficient infrastructure servicing areas where certain racial/racialized groups live keeps these groups from accessing adequate health-care services (Taneja, 2011; MRGI, 2013), and water and sanitation (Goethe Institut, n.d.; MRGI, 2015; Taneja, 2011: MRGI, n.d.1). Lacking either means or 12 proper insurance, these groups often have to pay higher rates for health care at private hospitals for similar (or worse) services (MRGI, n.d.2). Accessing justice for violence, exploitation, or harassment can be challenging for some racialized groups because of high fees, language barriers, or discrimination by justice officials (MRGI, 2019). Poverty and racial/racialized status often compound the lack of access to political space. Members of certain racial/racialized groups are often un- or under-represented in parliaments, excluded from national identity debates, and their political leaders subject to violence and harassment (Aidi, 2020; King, 2021; IRI, 2020). There has been some progress in terms of political and civil society participation, including the establishment of political parties, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civic associations to advocate for the rights of racial/racialized groups, but some challenges to their full participation remain (Al-Hilali, 2019; Toumi, 2021; Aidi, 2020; Janmyr, 2016). Several challenges complicate progress toward understanding and addressing racial discrimination in MENA. The first is the MENA region's heterogeneity: not only do groups that face racial discrimination vary from country to country, but identifying which groups are considered the victims of racial discrimination is itself highly contested. The second challenge is that the same group's presence in two different countries does not always mean that this group faces discrimination in both places. The extent of exclusion based on group identity can differ based on local historical trajectories, as well as specific government policies. A third challenge relates to the sensitivity of the topic. The study of racial discrimination is inextricably linked to slavery, colonialism, migration patterns, and identity politics. Seen as “taboo� topics or political “red lines�, responses ranging from avoidance, rejection to denial that a problem exists make even broaching the subject difficult. 1.3 DATA AND APPROACH Given such challenges, and despite numerous case studies of racial discrimination in MENA, data- related gaps impede addressing the problem in the region. First, there is a lack of national-level, quantitative data. Census data are frequently outdated. Where such data do exist, they are not disaggregated, such that the population size of some racial/racialized groups is at best estimated and often differs significantly between sources. Second, the study of racial discrimination often focuses on one specific racial/racialized group in a given country, rather than including numerous or all racial/racialized groups. Consequently, such research designs preclude the ability to make intra- and inter-country comparisons. Potentially owing to group size, visibility, and/or intra- country power dynamics, there is significantly more information on some groups than others. Finally, specific areas of social inclusion are disproportionately documented within single countries in the MENA region and under-documented regionally. Under-documented topics include access to credit, electricity, transport, social protection, and physical and social spaces, as well as good quality information about where some racialized groups live to enable planning for infrastructure and investment. Such data gaps have made it difficult to assess the challenges posed by racial discrimination and address its consequences. Lack of data may partially explain why racial/racialized groups are not often addressed or the focus of national reports. Areas of research that are currently precluded by a lack of quality data include: (i) whether other bases of discrimination (such as those based 13 on gender or religion) are more locally salient than racial discrimination; (ii) if different groups suffer from different forms of exclusion; (iii) if noted problems are system-wide and therefore not explicitly racially motivated; (iv) the different ways that racially-motivated exclusion manifests; and (v) its socio-economic and wellbeing consequences. This study aims to fill some of these gaps in data and evidence on racial discrimination in the MENA region using a new survey conducted by the World Bank. The WBG’s Quality of Life Survey was rolled out between 2022 and 2023 via Facebook in seven MENA countries in the MENA region. The survey was conducted online to overcome challenges in collecting data on race and discrimination in these countries. The survey targeted specific racial/racialized groups in each country, informed by a literature review and country-specific profiles. It included 40 questions on racial identity and discrimination, demographic and socio-economic characteristics, and wellbeing. The surveys were available in Arabic (in every country) and French (in two countries). In each country, respondents aged 18 years and over were recruited through a Facebook advertisement with a link to the survey. The advertisement asked Facebook users to report on the quality of life in their country. These users then self-selected into participation in the survey by clicking on the link. Across the seven countries surveyed, there were more than 16,000 responses, with the sample size for each country ranging from 1,300 to 3,300. Data collection was also attempted for GCC countries, but response and completion rates for the survey in these countries were very low and they were excluded from the study. Internet surveys can be rolled out quickly and at relatively low cost compared with traditional survey methods. Data from the Quality of Life Survey were used to address three main questions about racial discrimination in the MENA countries surveyed. First, which groups experience racism? For each country, the study examined the experiences of different racialized groups of citizens, as well as migrants and refugees. Differences within groups by gender, age, and income level were also analyzed. Second, what types of racial discrimination are prevalent in MENA countries? The study looked at experiences of interpersonal discrimination, together with economic and social indicators that are associated with structural and institutional racism. Finally, the study examined the relationship between experiences of interpersonal discrimination and subjective wellbeing, as measured by life satisfaction, mental wellbeing, perceived safety, and eudaimonic wellbeing, which refers to feelings of optimism, autonomy, and resilience. The results from the 2022 Quality of Life Survey may not be representative at the national or regional level. Survey respondents were typically more likely to be male, better educated, and older than the general population. As such, survey results are reflective of the experiences of individuals who completed the survey, rather than the general population in the MENA countries surveyed. This is reflected in this report’s specific use of the term “survey respondents� when discussing the results. Nevertheless, the study identifies patterns across groups and countries that provide useful evidence on the broader prevalence of racial discrimination and its potential impacts, as well as highlighting areas that merit further research. The 2023 Quality of Life Interviews were conducted in two pilot countries to supplement findings from the survey. Interviews were conducted with 21 respondents (of which five were experts). These interviews focused on self-reported experiences with discrimination and generated new information based on respondents' own words and explanations. The two selected countries represent diverse cases in the MENA region and vary along multiple axes that are relevant to the study of racial discrimination, including one FCV and one non-FCV country, different economic 14 context, historical trajectories, presence of racial/racialized groups, and country-level efforts to address discrimination. A significant benefit of the semi-structured approach was that it allowed respondents to elaborate on their thoughts and opinions, evoke drawbacks and achievements, express unreported opinions not connected with the interview questions, and consider the same issue from different standpoints. There was variation in age, gender, ethnicity, religion, educational attainment, employment, geography and citizenship status among interview respondents, which helped the team better understand how intersecting identities impact respondents’ experiences. Including different racial/racialized groups in each country, the study design aimed to reflect their unique historical and demographic characteristics. In the survey, citizen respondents were divided into racial/racialized groups based on self-identification as belonging to a particular racial group, being of Black/Afro-origin or being internally displaced. In some cases, racial/racialized groups were aggregated within countries to ensure that there was a sufficiently large sample to generate meaningful results. Identification and aggregation of groups was informed by a thorough review of secondary research on racial identity in each country. Where sample sizes for particular groups were too small but the groups were considered too disparate to aggregate, the groups were dropped from the analysis. Many citizen respondents identified as belonging to more than one racial/racialized group. As a result, the racial/racialized groups of citizens overlap and are not mutually exclusive. The degree of overlap varies across countries and across racial/racialized groups. Typically, Arab citizens were the least likely to identify with more than one racial/racialized group. By contrast, around 90 percent of Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents identified with more than one racial/racialized group. In most cases, respondents also identified as Arab citizens. Non-citizen respondents were classified as either migrants or refugees. Where sample sizes were too small to make reliable estimates, the groups were dropped from the analysis. A group comprising all citizens was used as a comparator in the analysis of migrants and refugees in Section 3. In contrast with the citizen racial/racialized groups, the three groups in the analysis in this section (all citizens, migrant non-citizens, and refugee non-citizens) were mutually exclusive by construction. Refugees and migrants have different legal status than citizens. Legal status often manifests itself in challenges related to identity documents. Lack of identity documents and the processes of obtaining them often create administrative barriers that exclude some groups from equitable access to many public and financial services, and curtails freedom of movement (Meshkal, 2019). Since refugees and migrants face these additional barriers, they are likely to experience several overlapping types of discrimination. The study examined the prevalence of interpersonal, structural and institutional discrimination for each of the racial/racialized groups identified in each country. The survey included direct measures of interpersonal discrimination, and a range of economic and social indicators that were used to examine experiences of structural and institutional discrimination. Experiences of interpersonal discrimination were measured in two ways. First, respondents were asked if they had ever been the victim of a racial slur. Second, respondents were asked how regularly they experienced a range of discriminatory behavior using the Everyday Discrimination Scale (short version) (Sternthal, Slopen and Williams, 2011). Chronic discrimination was defined as experiencing discrimination at least once per month (Williams et al., 2008). Respondents who experienced chronic discrimination were asked about the reasons that they faced discrimination (race/ethnicity, gender, income level, religion, name and education level) and what they did in response. The responses were aggregated into four categories: acceptance (accepted it as a fact 15 of life, or realized that you brought it on yourself); took action (tried to do something about it, or worked harder to prove them wrong); talked to someone (talked to someone about how you were feeling, or prayed about the situation); and showed anger (expressed anger, or got mad). A range of economic and social indicators were examined to describe experiences of structural and institutional discrimination. These included unemployment, poor self-rated health, living in overcrowded dwellings, low education levels, low income, and dissatisfaction with access to services. Subjective wellbeing of the survey respondents was measured, including life satisfaction, mental wellbeing, and eudaimonic wellbeing (feelings of optimism, autonomy, and resilience), following OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Wellbeing (OECD, 2013). Life satisfaction was measured using a question on overall life satisfaction that has been widely used in surveys of subjective wellbeing (for example, Eurofound, 2017). Mental wellbeing was measured using the WHO-5 Wellbeing Index developed by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1998). Eudaimonic wellbeing was measured using a series of six questions taken from the European Quality of Life Survey (Eurofound, 2017). In addition, respondents were asked two questions about personal safety in their home and on the street after dark. Personal safety has been found to be highly correlated with other measures of subjective wellbeing (Boarini et al., 2012). 2 DEFINING RACE AND RACISM IN MENA The common use of the term "racism" that evokes a biological understanding of race is increasingly debated. Race defined as a biological trait is often contrasted with ethnicity, which is commonly understood as heritage and culture shared among a group. Thus defined, race is assigned and unchangeable, while ethnicity is self-professed and adaptable. This stylized dichotomy, however ubiquitous, is problematic. First, scientists have repeatedly rejected the notion that race is a genetic construct (Fuentes et al., 2019). Second, groups targeted by racist ideologies can change over time. Placing race in such a historical context shows its fluidity and how it is socially engineered. Biological difference then becomes a pretext for claims of alleged superiority made by a dominant group to systematically dispossess and exclude defined "races" from social, economic and political processes (Clair and Denis, 2015). Nonetheless, while groups targeted by racial ideologies can change over time, the adverse consequences of racism are path dependent (Babül et al., 2021). Members of once excluded groups may continue to face challenges and experience negative outcomes that long outlast the period during which their group was marginalized (Acharya et al., 2016). Definitions of race based on physical characteristics are still used, but scholars and practitioners increasingly place the study of race in the context of historical trajectories and social construction. A growing body of work by racism scholars, including MENA regional experts, has adopted a framework that views the construction of race as a process "deeply rooted in power relations and social dynamics, with racial formations emerging through cultural and political contestation rather than following naturally from skin color, phenotypical difference, or ethnic origin" (Aidi et al., 2021). These approaches point to an increasing need to expand the understanding of race and that “race� is not a static category for many. 16 The International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) definition for racism allows for the socially constructed view of racial/racialized groups. The ICERD states that racism refers to "any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin, which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life." The ICERD definition thus recognizes that the basis of discrimination can vary across cultural contexts, and that racism is not confined to discrimination simply based on “race� but in fact on various, identity-based categories (including color, descent, or national or ethnic origin). This definition is in line with the WBG's Anti-Racism Task Force and the WBG Technical Note on Addressing Racial Discrimination through the ESF (World Bank, 2021c). It is widely accepted by governments in the MENA region that have ratified the ICERD, though some countries have done so with exceptions (World Bank, 2021c; UN Treaty Collection). The processes through which race has been constructed in MENA countries are complex and merit their own examination because they do not reflect Western understandings of race, especially in the United States. While recognizing that the designation of individuals into racial/racialized groups is a product of local histories and country-specific dynamics of social contestation, this study approaches racial/racialized groups as a series of identities included under the umbrella of the ICERD definition of racism. There are three key axes along which racialization occurs, though it is important to note that such axes are not mutually exclusive: colorism, ethnonational distinctions, and displacement-affected status. Skin color-based racialization—which is a global trend—is the first axis of racial discrimination. It is frequent in the MENA region that "Colorism", or discrimination against individuals with darker skin, overlaps with genealogical, historical, socio-economic, and religious actors such as slave ancestry, the absence of 'asl (origin) and Arab lineage, inferior social and occupational position (class), dark skin color, and lower educational status (UN Treaty Collection). Some have noted the need to recognize the inherent privilege of "othering" individuals in MENA based on skin color. In the context of MENA, a scholar asks "What is Whiteness in North Africa" as a way of challenging the construction of "Blackness," "as if it were non-indigenous to North Africa" (Tayeb, 2021). This point is critical to understanding race in MENA and the rest of the world beyond a Black/White dichotomy. The purpose of discussing skin color as one axis of discrimination is not to reify the category, but rather to deconstruct racism by noting that it is one persistent dimension along which marginalization occurs. Everyday forms of colorism include racial slurs linked to enslavement and inferiorization. In several MENA countries, Black people (or people racialized as Black) are often referred to as "abd", or "oussif/a," which mean slave (Parikh, 2021). Moral supremacy attached to racialization gives birth to ideologies positing that some groups are "inferior" (Turner, 2020). Ethnonational belonging is a second axis of differentiation commonly used to discuss racial/racialized groups. Marginalization of groups based on "origins" is less about biological lineage and more about power dynamics (Hall, 2021). Specifically, these power dynamics refer to the social engineering of differences allowed some groups to variously dispossess other groups of resources and disenfranchise them from participation in the resource distribution processes. 17 Ethnoreligious categories became politically relevant in the wake of foreign conquests and colonialism, as external powers instituted "divide-and-conquer" strategies to rule. Categories created in the wake of these policies outlived the strategies that gave birth to them. Furthermore, 20th century nationalist movements that sought to advance national unity under the umbrella of Arab nationalism often did so by imposing cultural homogenization, such as privileging one language over others. This policy often resulted in the disadvantage or exclusion of specific groups from participation in markets and access to public services (Taneja, 2011; Janmyr, 2016). Refugee, migrant and IDP status is third axis of racial discrimination according to which individuals were included in this study. While racism itself can create refugees, refugees are also more likely to experience racism along all stages of their journey. Many MENA countries are hosts to migrants and refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and from neighboring MENA countries. According to UNHCR’s 2022 Global Report, the MENA region in that year was home to 2.4 million refugees, 12.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and over 600,000 asylum seekers and stateless persons (UNHCR, 2022). Article 1, paragraph 2 ICERD provides for the possibility of differentiating between citizens and non-citizens.3 In addition, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has adopted General Recommendations to clarify that protected groups under Article 1 include indigenous persons (CERD, 1997), non-citizens including refugees (CERD, 2004), Muslims subjected to Islamophobia, and more generally persons whose religious identity has been “racialized� (CERD, 2007), as well as African descendants, particularly those in the diaspora (CERD, 2011), among others.4 While the recognition of legal status and commensurate delegation of rights lies with sovereign states, migrants and refugees may experience racial discrimination on various other grounds. As underlined in the 2023 WDR on Migration, Refugees, Societies, “migration policies and impacts cannot be fully understood without acknowledging how race and ethnicity shape individual and community experiences at all stages of cross-border movements,� increasing human distress and resulting in inequitable development outcomes (World Bank, 2023a). Racial discrimination is not confined to minority groups. While many studies adopt identity-based lenses to study power dynamics in the MENA region, it is important to differentiate the study of racial discrimination from the study of minorities. Numerical minority groups are neither necessarily nor exclusively the ones who face racial discrimination in the region. It is necessary to separate out relative population size from access to power as a first step in identifying which racial/racialized groups face discrimination in MENA. In several countries, the politicization of minority groups was a direct consequence of Ottoman, British and French colonialism, when minority groups were co-opted as part of "divide-and-rule" strategies. The legacy of this strategy has had varied consequences. In some cases, it created antagonism between groups or a backlash against those favored. In others, it created groups that maintained power long after the end of the colonial period. Considering these historical trajectories and current realities in MENA, collecting data disaggregated according to racial/racialized groups can reveal groups that are 3 “This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Conve ntion between citizens and non-citizens.� 4 CERD specifically stated that under the Convention, “differential treatment based on ci tizenship or immigration status will constitute discrimination if the criteria for such differentiation, judged in the light of the objectives and purposes of the Convention, are not applied pursuant to a legitimate aim, and are not proportional to the achievement of this aim� (CERD, 2004). 18 excluded, but also those who, in comparison to national averages, are disproportionately affluent or enjoy better access to services on account of their racial/racialized identities by design or otherwise. Country-specific dynamics were taken into account when constructing survey samples and, specifically, which groups to target for inclusion in the study. The study examines interpersonal, and institutional or structural discrimination. Racism is typologized into four categories broadly: (i) internalized; (ii) interpersonal; (iii) institutional; and (iv) structural. These types of racism are, in turn, differentiated by two factors: (i) the actors involved; and (ii) the overtness or intentionality of racist expression. Internalized and interpersonal forms of racism are concerned with documenting the discriminatory attitudes and biases of individuals. Internalized racism is concerned with private, personally-held beliefs about race and racism, including how external negative messaging about an individual's in-group becomes accepted as personal beliefs (Osajima, 2007). Internalized racism recently expanded to include discussions among majority or dominant groups on beliefs about privilege. Internalized racism is mostly private and inwardly directed. While interpersonal racism explores the ways racial beliefs are externalized in interactions between and among individuals (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014), interpersonal racism can also be more innocuous. It is overtly expressed in the form of hate speech, racial slurs, and racial violence. It can take the form of microaggressions wherein implicit biases color interactions with others. Meanwhile, institutional and structural forms of racism are discriminatory policies within and among institutions. Coined in the 1960s, institutional racism shifts focus from looking at inequitable outcomes as a function of individual beliefs and ideas to the consequences resulting from officially and unofficially codified policies and practices of state institutions, government agencies and services, education, and places of employment (Clair and Denis, 2015). Examples of institutional racism include inequitable funding and infrastructural development between minority and majority schools, or unequal opportunities for career advancement in firms. Institutional racism looks at within-firm racism, while structural racism looks at inequitable outcomes as a function of processes coordinated across both formal and informal institutions. Structural racism has been defined as "macrolevel systems, social forces, institutions, ideologies, and processes that interact with one another to generate and reinforce inequities among racial and ethnic groups" (Gee and Chandra, 2011). Manifestations of structural racism include segregation in schools and housing, systematic denial of citizenship, and government surveillance of certain racial/racialized groups. Institutional and structural racism can be overt, but the focus is often placed on covert forms. 3 EXPERIENCES OF DISCRIMINATION AMONG MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES Perhaps the most resounding and regionally sweeping finding of the 2022 World Bank Quality of Life Survey is extent to which migrant and refugee respondents are negatively impacted by discrimination. Of countries surveyed, five had both migrant and refugee respondents; one had only refugees; and one had only migrants in the surveyed respondent pool. Three key findings emerge. First, migrant and refugee respondents reported experiencing interpersonal discrimination at higher rates than citizens across most indicators. Particularly notable are the proportions who report being victims of racial slurs. Second, while both migrant and refugee 19 respondents report facing institutional discrimination at rates higher than citizens, the experiences of refugee respondents are more similar to each other across countries than those of migrant respondents. That is, refugee respondents in different countries tend to report facing institutional discrimination on the same indicators while cross-country comparisons reveal there is more variation in how migrant respondents encounter institutional discrimination. Finally, however, despite this variation in the specific type of institutional discrimination faced by either refugee or migrant respondents, there is much less variation in the degree of institutional discrimination. Where one of the two sampled groups experiences discrimination on a given indicator, the other does so as well, and the difference in rates is statistically insignificant. Racial and ethnic prejudices play a central role in shaping perceptions of migrants and refugees at every stage of their journey and in their destination societies. As underlined in the 2023 WDR on Migration, Refugees, Societies, this can result in discriminatory practices and negative attitudes toward these individuals, and can critically affect their opportunities, development outcomes and wellbeing (World Bank, 2023a), including challenges in accessing basic services, employment opportunities, housing, and health care in their destination societies. Discrimination also manifests itself in social exclusion, stigmatization and verbal or physical abuse. In some MENA countries, Black migrants and refugees experience everyday forms of colorism, including racial slurs linked to enslavement and inferiorization (Parikh, 2021). Examples of racial and ethnic stereotyping in the public and private sphere include Sub-Saharan African men being presumed to be unsanitary, Sub-Saharan African women seen as sexually available, or some South Asian nationalities being perceived as unintelligent (OHCHR, 2019a). Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees from Sub- Saharan Africa and from other countries in the MENA region frequently experience racist and xenophobic acts in public, including spitting, insults, stone throwing, and physical assaults. Accountability is often compromised by inadequate legal assistance and support structures, language barriers, and absence of trust in the authorities (see, for example, OHCHR, 2019a). Furthermore, stereotypes can be perpetuated through media coverage, political narratives, and social media, amplifying misperceptions and prejudices. Such documented prejudices stemming from individual case studies in MENA are echoed across all surveyed countries in the 2022 World Bank Quality of Life Survey: migrant and refugee respondents consistently reported much higher rates of interpersonal discrimination than citizen respondents. In most countries, more than half and as high as 90 percent of migrant and refugee respondents experienced at least one type of interpersonal discrimination, compared with 30–60 percent of citizen respondents. Of all forms of interpersonal discrimination that were asked about, being a victim of a racial slur was the form most commonly reported: between 50 and 90 percent reported encountering racial slurs, compared with around 15 to 40 percent of citizens who reported the same. Results across countries were more varied with respect to reports of being treated as less smart (between 15 and 70 percent) and receiving poorer service (between 10 and 55 percent). While smaller shares of migrant and refugee respondents in all countries reported that they were treated as though others feared them, around half or more said they were treated with less courtesy, and at least a quarter and as high as 70 percent of migrant and refugee respondents reported they were chronically threatened or harassed, compared with less than 30 percent of citizen respondents. 20 Box 3.1 Experiences with interpersonal forms of discrimination among migrants and refugees came up in the interviews. We [migrant workers] should have [protections] and a Ministry for Migrants because one time I worked in a place, I agreed with him on a salary, and when he came at the end of the month, he did not give me the same salary. He deducted from it. He said, “I don't like your work.� I said “What did you not like about my work? I came and worked on a conditional basis for a week as a test. I kept coming back after. You saw my work. Why did you not say anything during that week? Why did you continue to let me work? You could’ve told me that I was going to get a lower salary, but you waited until the end of the month to change my rate?� -Marwa*, a woman in her thirties and former nurse. She fled her home country and became a hairdresser in a neighboring country. Box 3.2 Negative perceptions and stereotypes of mobile populations, particularly Black/Afro-origin migrants and refugees, were mirrored in some of the interviews. We have three types of African migrants ... The first type, those that use [this country] as transit to Europe, those are the worst ones because they damage our lives. They break into houses; they don't care because their main goal is to get transferred to Europe. So, the past, let's say, 15 years, there have been an increase in African migrants from South Sahara coming to [this country] using [it] as a transit… Near the bus station, they created their own camp over there. I went inside the camp six years ago, just out of curiosity, and it's like little Africa, everyone from somewhere. They cook food and the level of issues, of sanitary issues, are high.... I was scared of what's in there and all I saw, just prostitution and food... But they knocked that place down because it was causing a lot of problems. Those are the types of African migrants that [we] don't think should... They don't want to settle in [this country]. The other type, the female prostitutes that come to [this country], for prostitution. The third type are students and professionals that like to settle in [this country]. They come and get education and get some business and some of them stay, some of them leave. -Ahmed*, a male Arab citizen in his mid-thirties. He is currently unemployed. In addition to forms of interpersonal discrimination, various forms of institutional discrimination against migrant workers, particularly those from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, also have been documented in individual case studies. Migrant workers, especially those working in inadequately regulated or informal sectors, are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and abuse. Often employed in sectors where workplace safety, health, or other standards are non-existent or not enforced, migrant workers tend to face exploitative working conditions, low wages, poor living conditions, and limited access to legal protections (Testaverde and Pavilon, 2022). Given their lack of formal legal status or precarious situations in some countries, they are perceived as “being removable from the territory of the country, for example when domestic unemployment rises and/or when rising political tensions prompt the targeting of scapegoats� (ILO, IOM, OHCHR 2001). Especially under the kafala system, which ties the temporary work visas of migrant workers to their employers or sponsors, migrant workers frequently experience discrimination, exploitation, and abuse. The kafala system employs around 21 23 million migrants, primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia in some MENA countries (Barkawi, 2020). It has been criticized for instances of labor rights violations, including non-payment of wages, confiscation of passports and restrictions on freedom of movement. Reportedly, 40 percent of employers refuse to pay employees on a regular basis, or at all. Workers often work 10–18 hours per day and one-third of employers physically assault their employees (Barkawi, 2020). Female domestic migrant workers face high rates of sexual harassment, abuse, and violence (Ayoub, 2020). Refugees from the MENA region have also faced numerous barriers in their host countries. Some of these host countries variously impose curfews to limit movement; prohibit or limit the ability to rent housing; and significantly curtail the ability of refugees to find gainful employment in the formal market. Box 3.3 Data from qualitative interviews highlights both the inadequacy of labor laws in some MENA countries to protect the rights of Asian or Sub-Saharan African migrants and the extent to which their treatment is dependent on attitudes and behaviors of individual employers. One interlocutor described the process of hiring a domestic worker: I go to the company and choose one girl [from a specific country of origin…] just according to m y financial possibilities because each country has a special price. These Africans —their contract is cheaper. […] We sign a contract with the company. [For the domestic worker’s status to be legal] we must get a residency [permit] from government, and we promise [to be] responsible for her and her life and everything for like two years. We pay the company [the worker’s] expenses—visa money, flight money—and every month the salary is fixed by the company. Every month I add to it [the salary prescribed by the company]. [Workers] don't have trips, they don't have vacations, if you give her a day off, she doesn't get out of her room. There is no such thing as a vacation, but the passport, the work card and the residence card all have to be with the head of the household. […] These companies here bring in workers, they bring in people from all the African, Asian countries. [...] I have a worker at home. [...] For me, because I'm a humanitarian, I certainly don't make a distinction between her and my daughter. It depends on the person, the person's humanity, this treatment and discrimination. If one has a conscience, has humanity, these are human beings…There's a woman from Ethiopia who came [here]. She used to work in [another country] but you can see her hands, the burns, the cuts, I mean everything is there. -Yasmine* is a woman citizen in her fifties. She worked as a teacher and in civil society organizations. The 2022 World Bank Quality of Life Survey potentially provides supporting evidence for the consequences of these encounters with institutional discrimination. Migrant and refugee respondents typically reported worse outcomes than citizen respondents on a range of economic and social indicators, consistent with structural and institutional discrimination. With only a few exceptions, migrant and refugee respondents were more likely than citizen respondents to be unemployed, live in overcrowded housing, have low levels of education, low income and experience financial stress (deprivation or having income that failed to meet their needs). Legal requirements and permissions to work vary significantly across countries, and higher unemployment among migrants and refugees may be endogenous to their legal status. 22 One notable caveat when considering findings on institutional discrimination relates to questions on dissatisfaction with access to services. Citizen respondents were more dissatisfied with services than migrant or refugee respondents in three countries, while the reverse was true for refugee respondents in two other countries. In the remaining two countries, the differences in dissatisfaction with access to services between citizen and non-citizens were not statistically significant. It may be that some migrant and refugee respondents have lower expectations about service delivery than citizens, so they are less dissatisfied when their needs are not met. Using more granular measures of service delivery (for example, asking respondents whether they have access to reliable water, electricity, or communications services, or can buy fresh food close to home) could well yield different results. Furthermore, results on dissatisfaction with access to services sometimes vary by type of service, which may be linked to legal status. In one country, for example, refugee respondents had a similar level of dissatisfaction with services as citizen respondents. However, this contains disparities, with them being less dissatisfied with some services (electricity, public transport and shops) but more dissatisfied with banking services than citizen respondents. This is likely because access to banking services is often linked to legal status. Legal status can make it difficult to obtain identity documents needed to access many public and financial services, including banking, and obtain the permits required to operate businesses in the formal sector. This caveat notwithstanding, the study results suggest a need to differentiate between migrants and refugees in their country-specific experiences with institutional discrimination. Refugee respondents across different countries have more similar experiences to each other than migrant respondents have to each other across different countries. This finding emerges when considering comparisons of two different dyads: migrant versus citizen respondents and refugee versus citizen respondents. In the six countries with migrant respondents, in no two countries is there a perfect overlap of socioeconomic indicators where differences between sampled migrants and citizens are statistically significant. For example, while in two countries migrant respondents are worse off than citizen respondents on five of eight indicators, those five indicators are not identical across contexts. The specific arenas where migrant respondents encounter institutional discrimination differs from country to country. In contrast, for example, in four countries where refugee respondents are worse off than citizen respondents on seven out of eight indicators, these seven indicators are identical. This finding reiterates the need for more nuanced, country-specific approaches to addressing institutional discrimination particularly among migrant populations, and the overall need to devote more attention to the challenge among the refugee population. In all six countries that included migrants in the sample, migrant respondents were more likely than citizens to report that they were unemployed. At least 40 percent of all migrant respondents reported being out of work (compared to as low as 10 percent of citizen respondents). In five out of six countries, migrant respondents—more than 40 percent and as high as nearly 80 percent of them—were more likely to have low income, and significant shares in these same five countries reported living in overcrowded dwellings at rates higher than citizens. Commensurately, in four out of six countries migrant respondents experienced deprivation and reported that their income did not meet their needs, and the difference between the rates at which they reported these outcomes in comparison to citizen counterparts was as high as 30 percentage points. Self- 23 reported poor health was reported more frequently by migrant respondents in only two countries, and only in one country were there significant differences in dissatisfaction in access to various services. The differences between refugee and citizen respondents on these socioeconomic indicators are not only as pronounced than those between migrants and citizen respondents, but also they are more similar across countries. In all six countries with sampled refugees, refugee respondents were worse off than their citizen counterparts on four out of eight indicators: having low income, living in overcrowded dwelling, experiencing deprivation, and having income that did not meet their needs. Results on these last two measures are particularly notable. Around 90 percent or more of all refugee respondents reported each experiencing deprivation and having income that did not meet their needs. In five out of six countries, refugee respondents were more likely to be unemployed, and differences in these self-reported rates of unemployment between refugee and citizen respondents were as high as 40 percent in some countries. Like their migrant counterparts, however, refugee respondents were not more likely to report dissatisfaction with access to various services, though in four countries, refugee respondents did tend to report poorer health outcomes. Finally, while survey findings reveal important differences in the aggregated types of institutional discrimination that migrant and refugee respondents face across countries, in any one country, the degree to which they encounter various forms of discrimination tends to be equal. In any one of the five countries that included both groups, comparing the experiences of migrant and refugee respondents against each other reveals less variation: there are very few differences between the proportion of migrant respondents and the proportion of refugee respondents reporting adverse outcomes on any given indicator. For example, where overcrowded housing is a problem for a sizeable proportion of one group, it is for the other. Poor health was the one thing that refugee respondents were more likely than migrant respondents to report in three out of six countries. In only one country were refugee respondents likelier than migrant respondents to report unemployment, and in only one country were the former group likelier to report that their income did not meet their needs. Based on these findings, one key recommendation is to work with client countries on targeted solutions to address racial discrimination against migrants and refugees. The survey findings and examples from the interviews are consistent with other reports on the situation of migrants and refugees in the MENA region. As indicated in the 2023 WDR, better policies and programs can help increase net gains for migrants in MENA, especially when people bring skills and attributes that match the needs of their destination society, for them, their countries of destination, and their countries of origin. Formal access to the labor market, including documented legal status and the right to work, are essential for benefits to fully materialize. Destination countries can adopt policies that increase gains by facilitating economic and social inclusion, particularly in relation to employment, housing, education, and income. In addition, continued international protection of refugees, including in protracted displacement contexts, remains key. Building on its track record of engaging with MENA countries on migration and displacement, the WBG could help tackle some of the challenges related to difficult implementation of policies and programs by broadening the perspective to address additional barriers related to racism and racial discrimination. Targeted 24 interventions should specifically protect and support groups that face multiple disadvantages, such as young, Black/Afro-origin migrants and refugees, and those from low-income households. Addressing and combating racism remains crucial for creating inclusive and equitable societies for all individuals, regardless of their displacement or migration status. 4 EXPERIENCES OF DISCRIMINATION AMONG CITIZEN RESPONDENTS On average, citizen respondents experienced far less discrimination than migrant or refugee respondents, and the patterns that emerge among citizen respondents are far less sweeping regionally. Across surveyed countries, there is significant variation in both the types of discrimination—interpersonal, institutional, both, or neither—that are prevalent and also in the country-specific racial/racialized groups that experience discrimination. This lack of widely generalizable patterns perhaps reflects the diversity of the region, not only its racial/racialized and ethnic composition, but also in individual countries’ historical trajectories, political structures and economic systems. Still, three key findings on citizen respondents emerge from the World Bank 2022 Quality of Life Survey and could guide programmatic interventions that should build into their designs mechanisms to address disparities among racial/racialized groups. First, both interpersonal and institutional discrimination were prevalent only in two countries that also represent contexts affected by fragility, conflict and violence (FCV) included in the study, lending evidence to the fact that conflict settings can compound experiences with discrimination. Second, while there is more widespread evidence of interpersonal discrimination based on racial/racialized identity in all surveyed countries, institutional discrimination is less commonly reported. Notably, however, its presence may be obscured by the structural endemicity and pervasiveness of economic and infrastructural challenges in lower-middle income (LMIC) and FCV contexts. Finally, study of racial discrimination in MENA reiterates the necessity of allowing country-specific contexts to guide not only the selection of groups that discrimination, but also, which aspect of identity is the fault line along which unequal outcomes are reified. Among citizen groups, interpersonal and institutional discrimination were both prevalent only in two FCV countries, and in both, Black/Afro-origin and IDP respondents often reported experiencing the worst outcomes. The two FCV countries included in the survey have continued to experience episodic violence led by armed factions specifically organized around various forms of ethno-religious identity. Protracted conflict in turn has decimated infrastructure, limited the state’s monopoly over the use of force, left multiple factions vying for national power, and created scores of IDPs. Consequently, and as evidenced by survey results, racial/racialized groups marginalized before or because of protracted conflict have experienced numerous adverse outcomes. More than half of Black/Afro-origin respondents in these two countries reported being subject to racial slurs (compared to around 30-40 of Arab citizen respondents). Black/Afro-origin respondents also reported experiencing other forms of interpersonal discrimination, including receiving poorer service and being treated as unintelligent or as though others feared them, at higher rates than both Arab respondents and all citizen respondents. The differences between IDP respondents and other groups are starker still. Across most indicators, IDP respondents are 25 typically 10–20 percentage points more likely than other citizen respondents to have experienced interpersonal discrimination. The interpersonal discrimination faced by these groups is mirrored in the considerable differences on economic and social outcomes. More than 80 percent of IDP respondents in each country reported experiencing financial stress, meaning they variously experienced deprivation or lacked sufficient income to cover their needs. Black/Afro-origin respondents were also significantly more likely than other citizens to experience poor outcomes across all measures, although the differences were much smaller than for internally displaced respondents. Box 4.1 A country expert and an interview respondent reported that many of the IDP women abducted and raped by a militant group were later rejected and excluded from their communities. Their families would not talk about the rape, and they would say that these things are shameful, and how can we raise our heads [face the community] …They had no hope of living any longer and returning to their families, because they raped them... I mean, they thought they were going to kill them. -Yasmine* is a woman citizen in her fifties. She worked as a teacher and in civil society organizations. When these two FCV countries are considered alongside the other five MENA countries included in the study, a second pattern emerges. While interpersonal discrimination is more pervasive regionally, the differences among racial/racialized citizen groups on various socioeconomic indicators are seldom statistically or substantially significant. In six out of seven surveyed countries, at least one racial/racialized group reported experiencing a form of interpersonal discrimination—most commonly being the victim of a racial slur—at a rate greater than that of both the national respondent and Arab citizen (numerical majority) average. Across three countries, at least one racial/racialized group that identified as non-Arab was significantly more likely to report having been treated with less courtesy, treated as if they are not smart, receive poor service, and to experience any type of chronic discrimination. These differences, however, are not echoed in differences observed in economic and social outcomes between racial/racialized groups. At that, the groups reporting institutional discrimination differ from those reporting interpersonal discrimination. In several countries, for example, it is the Arab citizen respondent group that is more likely than others to report having low income, having income incommensurate with needs, or dissatisfaction with access to services. The percentage point magnitude of these differences, however, is small and typically less than five percentage points. The absence of starker differences among racial/racialized groups on measures of Institutional racial discrimination—and results across countries from the majority Arab citizen group—speaks both to the structural endemicity and pervasiveness of economic and infrastructural challenges in LMICs contexts. Arab citizen respondents represent the only racial/racialized group that is present in every surveyed country, and they constitute the numerical majority across countries. Survey results reveal that large majorities of Arab citizen respondents—more than 80 percent in two countries, more than 60 percent in three countries, and just about half in two countries—have experienced deprivation. Similarly striking shares of respondents report that their income does 26 not meet their needs. In addition, majorities of Arab citizen respondents in two countries are dissatisfied with access to public services. Box 4.2 Data from the interviews also illustrated that Arab citizen respondents experienced economic hardships and regional disparities that impact their access to markets. You have to know somebody to get employment … If you go to the North, they tend to have the highest discrimination against us “insiders�. Like you are less respectable, you're less modern… They think they're better than us because they're closer to Europe and they adopted a lot of values from Europe. When you go there, you'll struggle to find work as an “insider.� They won't treat you the same. -Ahmed*, a male Arab citizen in his mid-thirties. He is currently unemployed. These findings mirror economic and social challenges that have swept these countries. The April 2022 MENA Economic Update projected that, “eleven out of 17 countries in the region will not be able to recover to their pre-pandemic standard of living,� as measured by GDP per capita, including in five of the surveyed countries (Gatti et al., 2022). While the World Bank’s October 2022 MENA update projected that economies would by 5.4 percent, it nonetheless recognized that this growth is uneven, with oil-exporting countries being the ones at the forefront of the trend (Belhaj et al., 2022). External shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have sent inflation soaring and have particularly affected food prices in the region, where many countries are mostly net food importers and thus heavily susceptible to changes in global food prices. In 2021, the MENA region was home to over 20 percent of the world’s acute food insecure population while hosting just 6 percent of the world’s total population (Belhaj, 2022). Recognizing such systemic challenges, however, does not and should not be tantamount to ignoring the prevalence of discrimination. Evidence of differences among racial/racialized groups on social and economic indicators were small in most countries included in the World Bank 2022 Quality of Surveys, but institutional discrimination comprises just one type. Groups can and often do face interpersonal discrimination. Furthermore, while categorizing types of discrimination might be analytically and organizationally useful for studying the phenomenon, the two are inevitably connected. By way of example, hiring managers or landlords with latent racist attitudes might privilege members of their ingroup over others. As a result, the ability to access jobs and housing becomes more difficult for some groups than for others, even where segregation is not technically codified in formal public and private institutions. Indeed, the racism that pervades informal institutions—those “social unwritten norms, cultural traditions, or communal habits� (North, 1991)—becomes even more ubiquitous. The little variation seen in measures of institutional discrimination among citizen groups does not make the problem of discrimination any less threatening to achieving sustainable development, but rather makes it potentially more difficult to address. The third and final finding revealed by the 2022 World Bank Quality of Life survey in MENA reiterates the necessity of allowing country-specific contexts to guide not only the selection of groups that face discrimination, but also, which aspect of identity is the fault line along which unequal outcomes are reified. At its core, discrimination is about unjust imbalances that pervade 27 interactions among individuals and between individuals and their private and public institutions. Discrimination has an implicit aspect of comparison to it: that one group experiences distinction, exclusion, or restriction based on an aspect of identity suggests that other groups do not have the same experience to the same extent. Racial discrimination thus assumes that the main driving difference between those who do and do not experience distinction, exclusion, or restriction is racial/racialized identity. In most cases where discrimination is studied, it is frequently numerical minority groups that are most affected in comparison to the numerical majority. Overall, the MENA region is not an exception to this pattern, but several cases do serve as a reminder that it is not to be taken for granted. In some contexts, the racial/racialized group that constitutes the numerical majority in the country can be the one that is facing discrimination; in others, racial/racialized identity may not be the main cleavage that drives discrimination. Instead, other aspects of identity may be more salient in lived social interactions or in the allocation of resources and access to services. Ultimately, the study of racial discrimination in MENA and elsewhere is fundamentally concerned with uncovering inequities in social interactions and access to resources and resource-sharing mechanisms. This undertaking is impossible in a contextual vacuum and attempts to do so in the service of identifying regional or even global patterns have to make sure that they are based on local realities. 5 EMERGENT AND INTERSECTIONAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING DISCRIMINATION IN MENA COUNTRIES Box 5.1 We're a mixed family. We're a mixed family, religiously... my parents were Sunni, but as I said, they were secular. But we are married with Shia, with Christians, with all kinds, and also ethnically a mixture of Arab, Turkman, and Kurdish, you name it. -Maya* is a citizen between 60-65. She is a former state official. What forms of discrimination are most prevalent in surveyed MENA countries and on what basis is that assessment made? The starting point in the study of racial discrimination posits that racial/racialized identity is a key dimension along which unequal interpersonal and institutional outcomes are observed. Analyzing reported experiences based on study respondents’ self- reported racial/racialized identity thus effectively tests this hypothesis but, in doing so, also inherently makes two predeterminations about the basis of discrimination. First, it neglects to consider what individuals themselves perceive as being the basis of their discrimination. Second, it takes a singular dimension of identity without considering how multiple, overlapping aspects of identify may exacerbate or mitigate unequal outcomes. The preceding two sections detailing findings first among refugees and migrant respondents and next among citizen respondents have detailed evidence supporting the hypothesis concerning racial discrimination, but also noted where findings have failed to confirm it. If racial/racialized identity in some surveyed MENA countries is not the driving factor behind unequal outcomes, what is, and according to whom? The study therefore adopts emergent and intersectional 28 approaches to probe respondent-driven attributions for discrimination, and to explore how racial/racialized identity, combined with income, gender, age, and refugee or migrant status, can amplify experiences with discrimination. The analysis here takes as its starting point the findings in previous chapters that indicated weaker evidence particularly for institutional racial discrimination among citizen respondent groups. The analysis then adopts emergent approach that privileges and gives agency to survey and qualitative interview respondents by investigating what they perceive as the main cause of the discrimination they face. In discussing the perceived causes of and other factors intersecting with racial discrimination, the following analysis combines discussions of citizen respondent groups and refugee and migrant respondents. To analyze citizen respondents’ experiences of discrimination in more detail, data were pooled across all study countries for several racial/racialized groups of citizens that were common to at least four countries across the region: Arab citizen respondents, Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents, and Amazigh citizen respondents. Data is then pooled across all countries for citizen respondents, refugee respondents, and migrant respondents. Intersectionality is fundamentally concerned with identifying how individuals’ combined, inseparable identities cause them to experience systematic inequalities that might otherwise be missed or downplayed by single-identity approaches. Coined in her 1969 study of the oppression of African American women, civil rights advocate and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw summarized her entry point into the approach: “All inequality is not created equal� (Crenshaw, 1989). The inseparability of identity is the cornerstone of the intersectionality framework. Identities meet at a point of intersection and are socially constructed to prevent their separation. The intersectional approach thus has two key functions. First, in its revelatory function, the approach highlights how the inseparability of combined identities makes apparent those instances of discrimination that are not apparent in single-grounds analyses (Council of Europe, n.d.). Such experiences of discrimination would otherwise be overlooked. Second, intersectionality has a deepening function: “different forms of marginalization can deepen each other to create unique vulnerabilities, ones that cannot be [otherwise] addressed� (IWDA, 2018). Box 5.2 Interview examples revealed the tension some people experience while navigating their inseparable, sometimes conflicting identities. For me, it is more of a need to hide things, really put them [away]... while also presenting things that that person would like to see. For example, in a traditional Kurdish setting, I would need to take out the Kurd in me. In a more Arab setting, I need to take the Arab in me and talk about my experiences and about that so that that person would relate to me and more include me into their own conversations … I really can't express myself as much and I stutter a bit. Every single time I speak Kurdish, everyone tells me, “Okay, you're either an Arab who learned Kurdish or you're speaking Kurdish in an English accent� … It makes me feel bad... Because I also get comments from people like Arabs, …they would tell me, “Okay, you're not Arab� or whatever. I feel like I don't belong to any of them . -Mohammad*, a Kurdish male citizen was born in one region and moved to another as a teenager. He is between 20-25 years old and works in the private sector. Intersectionality thus recognizes that, because various aspects of identity are overlapping, so too are the root causes that engender discrimination based on intersectional identity. Unequal 29 outcomes produced by combined identities “cannot be attributed to one dimension alone� (World Economic Forum, 2020). An intersectional approach identifies how “interlocking systems of power�, and the overlap of oppressive systems combine to deny some groups their basic rights and equal opportunities (Crenshaw, 1989). The intersectional approach thus does not merely recognize but rather seeks to remedy discrimination, especially where existent remedies, for example legal recourses, fail to protect victims by often recognizing only single-category membership. Addressing intersectional forms of discrimination involves amending legal and policy frameworks to recognize the effects of simultaneous membership in multiple groups and the ensuing compounded deprivation of rights and unequal protections (AWRD, 2004; Equality Network, 2023; UN Women #2, 2021; OHRC, n.d.). While multiple combinations of identity work in concert to amplify or mitigate impacts of discrimination, in most intersectional analyses there is one category that is often privileged. Any one of multiple identity categories—including but not limited to race, color, descent, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity and expression, socio-economic background, religious affiliation, and migration status—can be foregrounded in analyses. A 2019 UN ESCWA report that uses an intersectional lens to understand gender inequality in the Arab World notes that this so-called “mastery category� is determined because it “has been most influential in determining access to social goods than other social categories� (UN ESCWA, 2019). In reviewing literature from the South African context, the report notes that the master category there was race because it was the key identity category that defined citizens’ positionality vis-à-vis social interactions, and state institutions and apparatuses. For example, again in the South African context, “a white middle - class woman will not suffer the same deprivations and oppressions as an African rural woman, even though they are both women� (UN ESCWA, 2019). Existing studies on MENA that adopt the intersectional approach have tended to use gender as the master category, but not racial/racialized identity. Multiple studies on MENA countries have looked at gender in concert with displacement status to highlight the additional vulnerabilities that displaced women face in comparison to men or in concert with age to suggest how aging perceptions are connected to different social standards for men and women (Ayoub et al., 2023; Hussein, 2023). A study on the intersection of gender and voting uses Jordan as a case study to show how social identity groups impact the electability of female candidates (Kao and Benstead, 2021). Another article on the intersection of gender and political violence uses a case study to demonstrate that gender dynamics intersect with ethnic identity, patriarchy, social class, and generation to influence political violence (Orhan, 2020). Lastly, a study on the intersection of highly educated, female, and migrant identities in Morocco argues for an intersectional approach that avoids “reproducing dominant representations of migrant women in positions of passivity and victimization� (Kynsilehto, 2011). While other intersectional studies of MENA that place primacy on migration status, sexuality, and race exist, they are far less numerous (see, for example, IFES, 2021; Kaplan and El Khoury, 2017; Ngeh and Pelican, 2018). Identifying the master category in an intersectional approach can be predetermined, but it also can be a task built into a study itself by using an emergent approach to leverage an often overlooked but quintessential source of information: citizens and affected populations themselves. Stemming from the qualitative research tradition and foundational to work in grounded theory, emergent approaches are data-driven instead of theory-driven. Rather than trying to detect predetermined patterns or categories in the data, data are used to determine patterns and categories. When used in tandem, theory- and data-driven approaches can complement each 30 other. The previous two sections used preexisting research on racial/racialized identity and discrimination to try to assess the pervasiveness of the problem among various populations in MENA through survey data. The following analysis instead uses as its launch point what survey respondents themselves said was the main basis for their discrimination and then, using the intersectional approach, looks at each of these aspects as intersection points with racial/racialized identity. The team also collected interview data on discrimination in an open-ended manner where interview respondents were free to discuss different types of discrimination that they had experienced. An emergent approach privileges and gives agency to survey and qualitative interview respondents by investigating what they perceive as the main cause of the discrimination that they face. In discussing the perceived causes of, and other factors intersecting with, racial discrimination, this section combines discussions of citizen respondent groups and refugee and migrant respondents. To analyze citizen respondents’ experiences of discrimination in more detail, data were pooled across all study countries for several racial/racialized groups of citizens that were common to at least four countries across the region: Arab citizen respondents, Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents, and Amazigh citizen respondents. Data are then pooled across all countries for citizen respondents, refugee respondents, and migrant respondents. Respondents’ perceptions of why they face discrimination differ significantly between pooled citizen respondent groups, and pooled migrant and refugee groups in the survey. While income was the most common reason given by all groups of citizen respondents for experiencing chronic discrimination (Figure 5.1), race was by far the most common reason for discrimination reported by migrant respondents. Race also ranked alongside gender and income level as the most common reasons for discrimination among refugees (Figure 5.2). Around 25–30 percent of citizen respondents who experienced chronic discrimination said that it was due to income level, while 40 percent of migrant respondents and 26 percent of refugee respondents said that discrimination was due to race or ethnicity, compared with 13 percent of citizen respondents. Notably, Amazigh and Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents were about twice as likely to attribute discrimination to race as those who identified as Arab, but the rates at which they did so were nonetheless smaller than migrant and refugee respondents. Citizen respondents were more likely to attribute discrimination to income than to race/ethnicity (Figure 5.3). Respondents from all racial/racialized groups with low incomes were the most likely to report income discrimination. Among Arab citizen respondents, discrimination was attributed to race/ethnicity by only 7–13 percent of those experiencing discrimination, regardless of gender, age, and income level. Race was given as a reason for discrimination by 15–20 percent of Amazigh and Black/Afro-origin respondents. The exceptions were for young Black/Afro-origin citizens (25 percent said that the discrimination they faced was due to race) and female Amazigh citizens (9 percent said that discrimination was due to race). Race/ethnicity was almost as salient a reason for discrimination as income among high-income Amazigh and Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents. In contrast, race/ethnicity was more likely to be listed as a reason for discrimination than income for most demographic groups among migrant and refugee respondents (Figure 5.4). Among respondents who experienced chronic discrimination, all groups of migrants examined were more 31 likely to list race than income as the reason that they experienced discrimination, with migrants who identified as Black/Afro-origin and those from high-income households the most likely to say that discrimination was due to race. Among refugee respondents, only females and those who identified as non-Black/Afro-origin were more likely to say that income was a reason that they faced discrimination than race (28 percent of female refugees and 24 percent of non-Black refugees said that discrimination was due to income). Race/ethnicity is the strongest indicator of discrimination among refugees and migrants, even non-Black refugees; it impacts every aspect of their lives—from employment to housing to education. When comparing citizen, migrant, and refugee respondent groups, then belonging to more than one disadvantaged group appeared to amplify the likelihood of discrimination (Figure 5A). Around 80–90 percent of respondents who were young, male, Black/Afro-origin refugees or young, Black/Afro-origin migrants (both male and female) experienced chronic discrimination or had been the victim of a racial slur, or both. Older Black/Afro-origin male and female migrants, and male refugees also experienced very high rates of interpersonal discrimination. The lowest levels of discrimination were experienced by older citizens but, even for this group, interpersonal discrimination is relatively commonplace, affecting between one-quarter and one-third of respondents. Overlapping identities based on race, gender, age, and legal status all impact discrimination levels, and there is a compound effect when individuals belong to more than one disadvantaged group. Using an intersectional lens, the study took each of three aspects of identity—socioeconomic status (income), gender, and age—and explored how these factors intersect with racial/racialized identity to exacerbate or mitigate unequal outcomes. Box 5.3 World Bank Quality of Life Survey findings that highlight intersectional discrimination. Figure 5A: Interpersonal discrimination by gender, age, and Black/Afro-origin, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Dots show mean values. 32 Figure 5B: Interpersonal discrimination by Black/Afro-origin, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Dots show mean values. Figure 5C: Interpersonal discrimination by age and gender, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values for groups defined by intersection of age, gender and racial/racialized group. For citizens, migrants and refugees, respondents who identified as Black or Afro-origin experienced substantially more interpersonal discrimination than those who did not (Figure 5B). More than 70 percent of Black/Afro-origin migrant and refugee respondents experienced chronic discrimination, while more than 80 percent had been the victim of a racial slur. Black/Afro-origin citizens were also more likely than non-Black/Afro-origin citizens to experience interpersonal discrimination, but the gap was relatively small, and they experienced less discrimination than non-Black migrants and refugees. There are sizable communities of both citizens and migrants in MENA that are racialized into categories that subject them to discrimination based on their skin color. Box 5.3 Some Black/Afro-origin respondents detailed their experiences with —and responses to—interpersonal discrimination, specifically noting how they were targeted on the basis of their racial/racialized identity. A few times before high school or middle school, someone said to me, ‘Your hair is frizzy and disheveled. Because my hair is not—it’s not very straight. It has the texture of Mohamed Salah's hair. Or like that. 33 Especially [in this country], they sometimes focus on the nature of the hair. [,,,] But for me, my frizzy hair was a source of strength and I let it grow out to my shoulders and left it long for a while. A couple of years later, it became fashionable. That’s how something that started as discriminatory was turned into a source of strength. -Ridha*, a male citizen in his thirties. He holds a bachelor’s degree and is pursing two master’s degrees. Among citizen groups, the combination of age and racial identity was strongly associated with experiencing interpersonal discrimination (Error! Reference source not found.). Young respondents from all racial/racialized groups experienced higher rates of interpersonal discrimination than older people. Young male Black/Afro-origin citizens had the highest rates of chronic discrimination (63 percent), while young female Black/Afro-origin citizens were most likely to have been the victim of a racial slur (62 percent). More than half of young Amazigh citizens had been victim of a racial slur, but young male Arab citizens had higher rates of chronic discrimination (57 percent). Respect for the elders is a standard norm across the region, and this norm may partially explain why older people were less likely to experience interpersonal discrimination. Also among citizen respondents, there is congruity between the main perceived reason for discrimination and findings on experiences with discrimination analyzed according to income level. Low-income citizen respondents had rates of interpersonal discrimination 15–25 percentage points higher than high-income respondents across all groups (Figure 5.5). However, around half of low-income respondents who were Black/Afro-origin or Amazigh citizens reported being the victim of a racial slur. Among high-income earners, Amazigh and Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents were more likely than Arab citizen respondents to have been the victim of a racial slur. In contrast, but again aligning with self-reported attributions for discrimination, there were relatively few significant differences in economic and social indicators among Black/Afro- origin migrant and refugee respondent groups (Figure 5.6). Black/Afro-origin migrant and refugee respondents faced high unemployment and low income, but not always at rates higher than their non-Black counterparts. The exceptions are for migrants where Black/Afro-origin respondents are more likely to report low income and less likely to be dissatisfied with service access than non- Black/Afro-origin respondents; and for refugees where Black/Afro-origin respondents are slightly less likely to have low levels of education. On all other indicators, color-based differences among migrants are small and not statistically significant. While there is evidence of an income gradient in interpersonal discrimination, even high-income migrant and refugee respondents experienced more discrimination than low-income citizen respondents (Figure 5.7). Among migrant and citizen respondents, there was a clear negative association between income level and interpersonal discrimination: low-income migrant respondents were 20–30 percentage points more likely to experience interpersonal discrimination than high-income migrant respondents. Similar patterns were evident for citizen respondents, although the gaps were smaller. For refugee respondents, the opposite was true: high-income refugee respondents were significantly more likely to have been the victims of a racial slur than 34 low-income refugee respondents, and there was no significant difference in the prevalence of chronic discrimination by income level for refugees.5 The results on differences in discrimination by income level should be interpreted cautiously because the direction of causality is less clear than for demographic characteristic like gender, age and Black/Afro-origin. It is plausible that experiencing discrimination ‘causes’ (at least in part) low income, rather than low income ‘causing’ discrimination. Likely both occur simultaneously. Even for demographic characteristics, it is possible that unobserved factors affect both the likelihood of belonging to a particular demographic group and the likelihood of experiencing discrimination. Box 5.4 Linkages between socioeconomic status and discrimination came up in the interviews, particularly with Arab non-citizen migrant and refugee respondents. [There is discrimination] to an indescribable degree. There are [citizens] who love Syrians. But there are others who don’t. I was working in a place, for example, as a coiffeur. The manager gave the [national] coiffeur girl three assistants, and she didn’t give me one. She told me “Manage yourself.� [When I asked why] she said, “You Syrians have no manners or morals�…I left my job after this. -Marwa*, a woman in her thirties and former nurse. She fled her home country and became a hairdresser in a neighboring country. While income provides a point of intersection where there is confluence between respondent- driven reasons for discrimination and outcomes analyzed on its basis among citizen groups, analyses involving gender instead reveal a gap between perceptions and outcomes. For all racial/racialized citizen group respondents, female citizen respondents were more likely to attribute chronic discrimination to gender than to race (Figure 5.8). Gender discrimination was cited as a reason for chronic discrimination by 38 percent of female Amazigh citizen respondents and 27 percent of female Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents. By contrast, fewer than 10 percent of male respondents said that they experienced discrimination due to gender. As evidenced in existing studies, women and girls who are also members of racially defined groups often face additional gendered risks, such as reporting higher rates of GBV and harassment, and decreased access to education and employment opportunities in the formal labor market (Nabil, 2020). Yet, male citizen respondents were significantly more likely than female respondents to report experiencing chronic discrimination in all racial/racialized groups examined (Figure 5.9). The size of the gender gap in chronic discrimination was similar across racial/racialized groups. Male and female respondents who were Amazigh or Black/Afro-origin citizens were much more likely to have been the victims of a racial slur than either male or female Arab citizens. While there were fewer gender differences in economic and social outcomes, male Arab citizen respondents had the worst outcomes among the groups examined (Error! Reference source not found.). Within groups, males tended to have worse outcomes than females, although the 5 The results on differences in discrimination by income level should be interpreted cautiously because the direction of causality is less clear than for demographic characteristic such as gender, age and Black/Afro-origin. It is plausible that experiencing discrimination ‘causes’ (at least in part) low income, rather than low income ‘causing’ discrimination. Likely both occur simultaneously. Even for demographic character istics, it is possible that unobserved factors affect both the likelihood of belonging to a particular demographic group and the likelihood of experiencing discrimination. 35 differences were not always statistically significant. For Black/Afro-origin respondents, males tended to have worse average outcomes on economic and social indicators than females, although the differences were only statistically significant for low education, having income that fails to meet your needs and being dissatisfied with services. For Arab respondents, males were more likely to be unemployed, and females more likely to report poor health, but on other measures the differences were either small or not significant. For Amazigh respondents, gender differences in outcomes were very small. Unlike citizen groups, both male and female migrant and refugee respondents commonly said that discrimination was due to gender (Figure 5.11). Around 28 percent of female migrant and refugee respondents who faced discrimination said that it was on account of gender. Male migrant and refugee respondents reported slightly lower rates (22 percent and 23 percent, respectively). In comparison with their migrant and refugee counterparts, female citizen respondents were the least likely to list race as a reason that they faced discrimination. For this group, income and gender (23 percent each) were the most common reasons given. Yet, there is no gap between the perceived causes of discrimination and experienced outcomes analyzed by gender among refugee and migrant female respondents. Female migrant and refugee respondents were much more likely to report chronic discrimination and having been the victim of a racial slur than either male or female citizens. Female refugee respondents were more than twice as likely to have been the victim of a racial slur as male citizen respondents, and 20 percentage points more likely to have experienced chronic discrimination. The gap between female migrant respondents and male citizen respondents was smaller but still considerable. As male refugee and migrant survey respondents also frequently reported gender as a basis for discrimination, they were also more likely to report facing chronic discrimination than their citizen counterparts. They were in fact around ten percentage points more likely to report experiencing chronic discrimination than females (Figure 5.12). Male refugees were also more likely to have been the victims of a racial slur than female refugees, while the gender difference for migrant respondents was not statistically significant. Notably, data from qualitative interviews particularly with refugee and migrant interlocutors raise an additional gender-related theme that was not explicitly included on the survey: experiences of GBV. While discrimination and GBV are treated as separate analytical categories and addressed differently in programmatic interventions, in interviews, both male and female migrant and refugee respondents who mention discrimination based on their gender or sexual orientation could not fully discuss their exclusion without also themselves introducing the issue of different forms of GBV. Like these respondents, some organizations, including the Council of Europe, espouse the idea that the two concepts are inseparable: “Gender-based violence is discrimination. It is deeply rooted in harmful stereotypes and prejudices against women or other people who do not fit into a traditional gender binary or heteronormative society. For that reason, gender-based violence can have the effect of pushing women and others who are affected to the margins of society and making them feel inferior or helpless� (Council of Europe, n.d.). As underlined in various studies and programmatic reports, GBV remains a major challenge in the region. Among others, the World Bank’s Action Plan on GBV in MENA highlighted that women 36 and girls are particularly at risk of different forms of GBV, including intimate partner violence (IPV), non-partner sexual violence, femicides and so-called “honor crimes�, child and early marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, as well as online forms of violence and sexual harassment. Compared to other regions, MENA has some of the highest prevalence rates for different types of GBV. Forty percent of women in MENA, for example, are estimated to have experienced physical or sexual IPV during their lifetime, which represents the second highest regional prevalence rate after South Asia (43 percent) and equal to Sub-Saharan Africa (40 percent). Additionally, average prevalence of FGM/C remains among the highest in the world. GBV against men and boys, as well as particularly vulnerable populations, is a taboo topic in many MENA countries. Challenges are exacerbated in FCV contexts, such as in higher levels of GBV, including sexual violence and forced marriage, and disrupted service provision due to insecurity, the breakdown of institutions, and the lack of rule of law. Individual case studies in MENA have documented how migrants and refugees particularly from Sub-Sahara Africa have experienced arbitrary detention, unlawful killings, physical and sexual abuse, and forced labor particularly in FCV contexts (Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons; Amnesty International, 2020). Women and children are exposed to high risks of physical abuse, rape, torture, and other forms of violence from smuggling and trafficking networks, even when just transiting through an FCV country (Qasim and Asubaro, 2019). Thus, while gender-based discrimination may not be one encompassed under the umbrella of the ICERD definition of racism, gender as an intersecting factor clearly compounds effects of exclusion among some populations. Box 5.5 Experiences of and/or perceptions about sexual harassment, IPV and other forms of GBV frequently came up during the interviews. Quotes from the interviews illustrate experiences of GBV and its intersection with other aspects of identity among respondents. Additionally, femicide cases were mentioned by several respondents. “Of course, there is street harassment. What place doesn’t have street harassment? I used to work at a center where I would have to walk a good distance, more than 1,000 meters just to get to it. If I wanted to take a taxi to [work] every day and a taxi back, I would spend my entire salary on the taxi. So, I’d walk the distance until I got to the microbus, which was cheaper. I [still] often face harassment during the commute. Cars stop me, so I don’t answer them. Why? Because no matter how much I try to speak [the national dialect], I still have a [foreign] accent.� -Marwa*, a woman in her thirties and former nurse. She fled her home country and became a hairdresser in a neighboring country. I was working at a place for two years and … my boss, the CEO of the company, was the most racist, misogynistic, homophobic person you've come across. He would make jokes about the humanitarian projects that are about, for example, gender or gender-based violence. One time, for example, he said “here's a solution for gender-based violence: just obey your husband.� He would make offensive jokes and mock queer individuals, including my colleague. He would mock him all the time. It really went against my values. I think that's why at one point I quit without even having a job offer because I really couldn't sit through that. -Mohammad*, a Kurdish male citizen who identifies as queer. He is between 20-25 years old and works in the private sector. Gender-related effects are also clearly seen in the realm of employment. Few of the indicators of structural or institutional discrimination showed significant gender disparities within groups, but 37 both male and female migrant and refugee respondents had significantly poorer outcomes than citizens. Males were much more likely to be unemployed than females across all three groups (Figure 5.13) and interview data also illustrated this finding. More than 70 percent of male refugee respondents and 46 percent of male migrant respondents were unemployed. The large gap in unemployment between male and female refugee respondents is likely to be because females who are not employed are much more likely to report being ‘stay -at-home’ than unemployed. Female migrant and refugee respondents were around twice as likely as female citizen respondents to be unemployed. Box 5.6 Discrimination based on gender also came up frequently during the interviews. Female interview respondents reported gender-based discrimination across all groups (citizens, migrants, and refugees). None of the male citizen interview respondents reported experiencing gender-based discrimination, except a male refugee interview respondents who reported facing discrimination based on his sexuality. Quotes from the interviews illustrate different experiences with gender-based discrimination and its intersection with other aspects of identity among respondents. Interviewer: Do you think men are being discriminated against at all? Ahmed*: Here in [this country]? Men being discriminated against... Well, I've been discriminated against from another man, not females, I think. -Ahmed*, a male Arab citizen in his mid-thirties. He is currently unemployed. I feel like being a woman sometimes in some contexts, you know, some people can discriminate against you just because you are a woman so sometimes, you know, but for race, no, I haven't experienced this, no, not at all. I feel like we don't have this issue. -Hala*, an Arab female citizen between 30 and 35 years old. She is married, has a graduate degree, and is a public sector employee. When I first [moved], it was this [society] that is opening up in a very fast way. They were not used to seeing a lot of foreigners or other expats. And it was happening really fast. So, I’m a person with long hair and piercings. And this is actually a stereotype for being gay there for them…I was trying to apply for a job, a lot of jobs, and most of them wouldn't hire me. One of them actually told me, “The way you look is not something that we accept here.� I wasn't really going to change that. So, I found work online instead as a customer service representative. -John*, a queer refugee. He fled his home country to avoid the violence and required military service. He is in his twenties and currently unemployed. Oh God, discrimination here is big. But right now, the biggest sort of discrimination is … against the queer community... Lately there have been many laws against the queer community. The most recent one … was about criminalizing homosexuality and basically making it punish able by death… For example, just two weeks ago, they arrested two queer people in [this city], which is supposed to be the liberal part of the law … Just a few days ago, a queer blogger basically was shot just a few days ago in the streets, and no one helped for two or three hours. These things are happening. I think if we're talking about discrimination about that aspect, it's getting really, really a lot. -Mohammad*, a Kurdish male citizen who identifies as queer. He is between 20-25 years old and works in the private sector. 38 Age is a salient factor for experiencing discrimination although both survey and interview respondents did not mention age as a basis for discrimination. Despite age variation among interview respondents (20-65 years), interview respondents did not mention age as a factor for discrimination. In the survey, no respondents in any group suggested that age was the basis of their discrimination. However, the MENA region is home to the most youthful population in the world, and analyzing results by age revealed that the factor is salient in diagnosing the presence of discrimination. Younger citizen respondents (aged 18–34 years) experienced substantially higher rates of interpersonal discrimination than older respondents across all racial/racialized groups (Figure 5.). Young Black/Afro-origin citizen respondents experienced the highest rates of interpersonal discrimination among the groups examined: 54 percent had been the victim of a racial slur and 61 percent suffered chronic discrimination. More than half of young Amazigh citizen respondents had also been the victim of a racial slur. Similar to citizen youth respondents, the vast majority (70–80 percent) of young migrant and refugee respondents experienced interpersonal discrimination, rates that were considerably higher than for older respondents (Figure 5.14). While the rates were lower for older migrant and refugee respondents, more than half reported chronic discrimination and around 60 percent had been the victims of a racial slur. There was also a steep age gradient among citizen respondents, with around half of young citizens experiencing discrimination. There was also a clear age gradient in many economic and social outcomes, with young citizen respondents around twice as likely to be unemployed as older respondents across all groups (Error! Reference source not found.). For all groups examined, the biggest gap between young and old respondents was for unemployment and low income. Rates of financial stress were particularly high for young respondents who were Arab, or of Black/Afro-origin. This may be partially explained by the changing demographics in MENA and the “youth bulge.� Young people are often over-educated and underemployed, given the shrinking role of the welfare state that previously employed college graduates and overall dire economic conditions in many of the MENA countries. Likewise, young migrant and refugee respondents also typically had worse economic and social outcomes than older people, although the situation for refugees was bad across the age spectrum (Figure 5.16). Youth were significantly more likely to live in low-income households than older people across all groups. For citizen and migrant respondents, young people were also significantly more likely to be unemployed, experience deprivation and live in overcrowded housing than older people. While older refugees were more likely to be unemployed than young refugees, both groups experienced unemployment rates of around 60 percent. The lack of a large age gap in financial stress for refugees was because almost all refugee respondents reported experiencing deprivation or failing to have income that met their needs. Older refugees were more likely than younger refugees to report poor health or low levels of education. In summary, using emergent and intersectional lenses to analyze pooled survey data highlights which groups tend to face most discrimination in the MENA region. Citizen respondents from historically disadvantaged racial/racialized groups were more likely than Arab citizens to say that chronic discrimination was due to race or ethnicity. Male respondents were typically more likely than females to report experiencing interpersonal discrimination, but gender gap was smaller on 39 economic and social indicators. Young and low-income respondents faced the highest rates of interpersonal discrimination. Migrant and refugee respondents were more likely than citizen respondents to attribute chronic interpersonal discrimination to race/ethnicity. However, migrants and refugees who were female, older, non-Black/Afro-origin or from higher income households still tended to experience more discrimination than citizens. These findings thus can serve as a guiderail for programmatic interventions whose design would be improved by making explicit how prosperity can be shared by these specific groups of individuals. 6 RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND WELLBEING IN MENA COUNTRIES Globally, the negative relationship between racial discrimination and wellbeing is well documented. Numerous reviews and meta-analyses have found that racial discrimination is associated with poorer life satisfaction and mental health, a greater likelihood of psychological stress and mental disorders (such as depression and anxiety), and poorer physical health (Paradies, 2015; Lewis et al., 2015; Gale et al., 2020; Schmitt et al., 2014). The negative association between discrimination and wellbeing appears to be strongest for those from disadvantaged groups but is also evident (though smaller) for those from dominant groups (Schmitt et al., 2014). While much of the evidence is from cross-sectional studies (and thus examines correlations), the limited number of longitudinal and experimental studies available provide some support for a causative relationship between discrimination more broadly and poorer wellbeing (Schmitt et al., 2014). Racial discrimination is thought to affect mental health and wellbeing through several direct and indirect pathways (Williams and Mohammed, 2009; 2013). First, experiencing discrimination is, in itself, a stressful event, associated with heightened risk of psychological distress and physiological reactions that can lead to illness. Second, experiencing discrimination is linked with stigma, internalized racism (self-stereotyping), and lower self-esteem. This can lead individuals who experience discrimination to engage in riskier health behaviors (such as smoking or drinking alcohol) and/or be less likely to engage in healthy behaviors (such as getting adequate sleep and exercise), with associated health impacts. Third, where racial discrimination affects education or employment outcomes, the negative impact on socio-economic status and income can directly impact wellbeing and quality of life, expose people more frequently to other stressful events (such as unemployment or financial stress), and reduce resources available to seek help. These impacts can be intensified by residential segregation that results in people from certain racialized groups living in areas that lack economic opportunities, services, safety, or have environmental conditions that adversely affect health. Finally, discrimination in access to health services can reduce the likelihood that people seek or receive treatment for mental illness. Box 6.1 Negative effects of experiencing different types of discrimination or violence on wellbeing and help- seeking behavior also came up in some of the interviews. The quotes illustrate some of the interviewees’ perceptions. I want my brother to be with me. To be honest like I had like this…I went to the hospital two days ago. I had this chest pain...The doctor came to me, and he was like, I'm sorry to tell you…but the good thing is 40 that there is nothing with you physically, I think this is something happening with your psychological part. And that day at the hospital, I took some food, and I was sitting outside, and I started crying …hysterically, and I started to remember that I actually …feel lonely…Sometimes I see myself like I'm supposed to be happier than I am. I'm trying. I don't know why I'm pushing myself into that …I'm not happy enough. I'm not. I should do more than that. But there, there's a lot of things to process. -John*, a queer refugee. He survived a suicide attempt when he was a teenager, and he was sexually assaulted in his twenties. He left the region but had to leave his brother behind. We took a project from [another organization] and it was an important project. I mean during these 3 years, we treated almost 300 children, we have psychologists who take them to psychotherapy centers in the governorate, and we sponsor their sessions, and we bring them and provide them with medications, and 49 people were saved from suicide in this program …I wish it wasn't stopped because there are more psychological cases pending after that…The psychological courses and psychological projects that we offer to these survivors, IDPs and refugees are the best thing, because psychotherapy is very expensive, and no one can diagnose a person with a mental illness unless they are a specialist... The issue we have with our society, if someone has a mental illness, they are ashamed to go, they say no, they say crazy. -Yasmine* is a woman citizen in her fifties. She worked as a teacher and in civil society organizations. Survey respondents who experienced interpersonal discrimination had lower levels of wellbeing than those who did not, with the worst wellbeing reported by respondents who had been chronically threatened or harassed. Pooling data across all surveyed countries, respondents who had experienced discrimination had average levels of wellbeing 1–3 points lower (on a scale of 1– 10) than those who had not experienced that form of discrimination (Figure 6.1). These results were evident for all types of interpersonal discrimination and all measures of wellbeing included in the survey. In all cases, the gap in wellbeing between those who had and had not experienced discrimination was statistically significant. 41 Figure 6.1: Wellbeing by whether experienced discrimination, all countries Source: Quality of Life Survey, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values. Bars show 95 percent confidence interval around estimated mean values. The confidence interval bars are not visible in most cases because the 95 percent confidence interval is very narrow. Among respondents of the survey, experiencing discrimination was clearly associated with lower life satisfaction, mental wellbeing, eudaimonic wellbeing and perceived security. The gap in wellbeing between respondents that experienced interpersonal discrimination and those that did not was evident across all surveyed countries, and across most racialized groups within each country. The gap tended to be smaller for groups where average levels of wellbeing were already low, including refugees and IDP respondents in some (but not all) countries, and across all groups in one country. Some of the gap in wellbeing between respondents who were the victims of a racial slur and those that were not appears to be due to differences in economic and social characteristics. Controlling for differences in economic and social characteristics reduces the marginal effect of discrimination on wellbeing considerably. For example, experiencing discrimination is associated with life satisfaction being, on average, 34 percent lower. Once economic and social characteristics are taken into account, the average gap falls to 11 percent (and 7 percent in two countries, where the effect is only statistically significant at 90 percent confidence level). Similar patterns are seen across all countries, and for all wellbeing indicators. Nevertheless, interpersonal discrimination had a negative and statistically significant association with wellbeing even after controlling for other demographic, economic, and social characteristics measured in the survey. Structural and institutional discrimination also appears to be associated with lower wellbeing for respondents who experienced interpersonal discrimination. Part of the gap in wellbeing associated with interpersonal discrimination was due to differences in economic and social characteristics between respondents who experienced interpersonal discrimination and those that did not. Groups that experienced high rates of interpersonal discrimination also appeared to 42 suffer from structural and institutional discrimination that leaves them with poorer health, lower income and more financial stress, all of which are associated with lower wellbeing. The results of this study, together with evidence from the existing literature, indicate a strong correlation between discrimination and wellbeing (Schmitt et al., 2014). The literature suggests that tackling discrimination—interpersonal, structural, and institutional—could have substantial positive effects on wellbeing for individuals from all racialized groups in the MENA countries surveyed. 7 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Towards Inclusion and Quality of Life for All Population Groups in MENA Addressing racism and discrimination is fundamental to creating a world free of poverty on a livable planet. The persistent discrimination and exclusion of marginalized groups is costly both to peoples and economies, contributing to underdevelopment, and exacerbating drivers of fragility and conflict. Despite growing evidence, understanding the prevalence and consequences of racial discrimination in the MENA region has been hampered by a lack of quantitative data. The processes through which race has historically been constructed are complex and vary from country to country. Racism takes different forms in different MENA countries, ranging from demeaning stereotypes and prejudices, discriminatory attitudes and behavior in everyday interpersonal interactions, exclusion, marginalization and impoverishment, to structural racism and discrimination enshrined in legal frameworks, institutions and policies. Racism also intersects with other forms of discrimination based on gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship status, class, or age which makes particular groups even more vulnerable. The results of this study, together with existing evidence, indicate a strong correlation between discrimination and wellbeing. The World Bank Group remains committed to foster non-discrimination and inclusion around the globe through its development work. In line with its Anti-Racism Charter, the WBG commits to zero tolerance of racism and racial discrimination in all forms and contexts (World Bank, 2021b), and it aims to support client countries in implementing their treaty obligations related to combating racial discrimination. Building on these global principles and the MENA strategy, the WBG continues to support programs that aim to improve access to market, services and spaces for all population groups, including Black/Afro-origin populations, other historically disadvantaged populations, as well as migrants, refugees, and IDPs in MENA countries. Given the heterogeneity of countries and affected populations in the region, as well as other intersecting factors of discrimination, future engagement requires context-specific, tailored solutions. Considering the survey findings, continuing efforts to address pervasive adverse social and economic outcomes in LMIC and FCV contexts have to be part of this agenda. The following recommendations are important building blocks for inclusion and quality of life in MENA countries. 43 7.1 CONTEXT-SPECIFIC DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Better data collection to understand racism and discrimination in MENA countries is needed. Given considerable data gaps and challenges in the region, this report presents an innovative approach to collect data on racism and racial discrimination across several MENA countries. There remains a critical need for better collection of disaggregated data to adequately assess the situation of vulnerable population groups in MENA, to make inequalities visible and to understand developments over time. In partnership with the WBG and other development stakeholders, countries should collect reliable and disaggregated data based on indicators that accurately reflect the racial, cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity of their populations. As illustrated by the survey findings, individuals should be allowed to select multiple racial/racialized identities and/or ethnicities in data collection efforts, and to indicate additional factors, such as gender, age, abilities, socioeconomic status, educational attainment, geographic location, etc. Technical assistance can help improve the quality of national statistics given the lack of quality data and limited statistical capacity in many MENA countries (Gatti et al. 2022). All data collection efforts must be in line with international standards, including rights-based principles on data collection, such as participation, data disaggregation, self-identification, transparency, privacy and accountability. Context-specific diagnostics are required to enhance knowledge and identify targeted solutions. Acknowledging the fluidity and context-dependency of racial/racialized identities and the heterogeneity of affected populations, between and within countries, context-specific analyses are required to develop tailored guidance on addressing racial discrimination. In addition to innovative quantitative data collection methods, in-depth qualitative data collection through in- person interviews and focus group discussions on the ground are recommended to address persistent challenges related to data collection on this sensitive topic and to better understand local realities in the different MENA countries. Mixed-methods approaches can contribute to better understanding of context, processes, and causalities. Longitudinal data collection allows for monitoring changes over time. In addition to improving data collection and analysis on the prevalence and impact of racism and discrimination, countries should review relevant laws and regulations, policies, institutional structures, and map implementation partners and civil society organizations. Country diagnostics may also include dedicated assessments on specific types of racial discrimination, prevalence and barriers for certain groups, or in specific sectors within countries. Building on better data and knowledge, countries should develop national legislation and policy reforms to address racism and discrimination more systematically. Baseline studies which include reliable, robust and disaggregated data on the prevalence and impact of racism and discrimination on affected populations, as well as mappings of the legal, policy, and institutional environment can serve as a starting point for evidence-based policymaking, monitoring and evaluation. National strategies and action plans in other countries have frequently included baseline studies, mappings, or reviews to identify the main challenges and barriers. Partnerships with research institutes and development partners, including the WBG, can help bridge gaps between diagnostics and policy design. 44 7.2 INTERSECTIONAL APPROACHES AND TARGETED MEASURES Further research is needed to understand different forms of discrimination in MENA and how various factors intersect in different contexts. When assessing where to start in addressing discrimination, it remains important to consider the relative salience of different forms of discrimination and to assess which aspect of identity is the fault line along which unequal outcomes are reified. To disentangle various, overlapping forms of discrimination, including with regard to gender, age, abilities, socioeconomic status, educational attainment, geographic location, etc., sound diagnostics require an analytical framework that systematically accounts for intersectional discrimination. Intersectional approaches recognize the need for tailored solutions. Understanding and addressing intersecting inequalities in MENA countries requires an intersectional approach, while acknowledging that differences exist, not only between but also within these groups, and manifest in different ways. As illustrated in the study, racism intersects with other forms of discrimination and can disproportionately affect individuals and groups. As underlined in international guidance, “an intersectional perspective deepens understanding of structural racism, and makes responses more targeted, effective, and efficient� (UNESCO 2023). Interventions in MENA countries should specifically protect and support groups that face multiple disadvantages, such as young, Black/Afro-origin migrants and refugees, and those from low-income households. The intersection of racism and gender requires further research in MENA countries. As indicated in the interviews, female respondents and those identifying as LGBTQI frequently reported gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment and gender-based violence. In several cases, these experiences were compounded by their racial/racialized identity, e.g., for displaced persons and migrants. Compared to other regions, MENA has one of the lowest female labor force participation rates and some of the highest prevalence rates for different types of GBV. Based on existing research, the World Bank’s Action Plan on GBV in MENA highlighted that women and girls are particularly at risk of different forms of GBV, including intimate partner violence, non- partner sexual violence, femicides, child and early marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, as well as online forms of violence and sexual harassment. MENA countries need targeted measures to tackle specific forms of racial discrimination. Depending on the national and sub-national context, certain forms of racism and racial discrimination require additional measures, e.g., specific actions to address anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism, or anti-migrant or anti-refugee racism, among others. Given the study findings that indicate high levels of racial discrimination against refugees and migrants across the region, targeted solutions are required to address specific challenges and barriers in this regard, while acknowledging country-specific regulations on legal status, as well as access to markets, spaces and services. As underlined in the 2023 World Development Report (World Bank, 2023a), countries can take various steps to maximize the development impacts of cross-border movements on both destination and origin countries and on migrants and refugees themselves. In addition to structural limitations, development outcomes for both migrants and refugees in MENA countries are currently hampered by experiences of racial discrimination, and its impact on access to services and wellbeing. For migrants in MENA, better policies and programs aimed at addressing racial discrimination can help increase net gains, especially when people bring skills 45 and attributes that match the needs of their destination society—for them, their countries of destination and their countries of origin. As indicated in the WDR, formal access to the labor market, including documented legal status and the right to work, are essential for benefits to fully materialize. Destination countries can adopt policies that increase gains by facilitating economic and social inclusion, particularly in relation to employment, housing, education, and income. The findings of this study also underline the need for continued international protection of refugees, including in protracted displacement context. Broadening the perspective in existing development efforts to address additional barriers for migrants and refugees related to racism and racial discrimination could help tackle some of the challenges related to difficult implementation of policies and programs due to internalized biases, etc. Addressing and combating racism remains crucial for creating inclusive and equitable societies for all individuals, regardless of their displacement or migration status. 7.3 PARTICIPATION OF AFFECTED POPULATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS Active participation of representatives from groups impacted by racial and intersecting forms of discrimination is key. Despite the need for context-specific solutions, meaningful participation of affected populations in the design, implementation and evaluation of the programs and policies aimed at addressing racial discrimination remains essential in all MENA countries. It is important to note that this can and often does include numerical majority populations in MENA. As illustrated by experience in other regions, making the experiences and views of affected populations visible and enabling their participation will help countries initiate and foster productive conversations in societies, increase process legitimacy and inclusion, and address the needs and priorities of affected groups more effectively. In collaboration with development partners, countries can develop and strengthen policies to ensure active engagement and participation of affected groups. Among other development partners, the World Bank offers robust policies and guidelines to safeguard vulnerable populations and mainstream inclusion, for example through the ESF. The World Bank has also specifically worked to improve the situation of racial/racialized groups, including Afro-descendants, particularly in the Latin America region. In MENA, recognizing that racial/racialized groups, including numerical majority groups, are indispensable partners for sustainable growth and inclusive prosperity is a prerequisite for effective development programs and policies in this regard. Technical and organizational capacities of affected groups, including via civil society organizations, should be strengthened to allow for their meaningful participation in development efforts in the region. Partnerships with multilateral institutions, civil society organizations, the private sector, foundations, think tanks, and others should be leveraged to boost country engagement on addressing racial discrimination in MENA. Engagement with stakeholders and partners on how to tackle persistent challenges can been a source of innovative solutions to country needs and development challenges. Increasing outreach and engagement with civil society, including NGOs, community-based organizations, foundations, non-profits, professional associations, unions, and charitable groups, is an important entry point in this regard. Effective collaboration on racism and racial discrimination in the region has the potential to incentivize action, mobilize resources, 46 improve efficiencies, and to maximize impact for affected populations in MENA countries. Aligned with its vision of recruiting new partners and reimagining partnerships to catalyze change (World Bank, 2023b), the WBG can help foster exchanges with partners within and beyond the region to share lessons learned and increase capacities. 7.4 LEADERSHIP, AWARENESS RAISING AND SOCIAL NORMS CHANGE Increasing awareness and recognizing diversity lay the foundation to prevent and address racial and intersecting forms of discrimination. Policymakers, communications media and educational institutions have key roles in raising awareness, shaping public attitudes and fostering social norms change. Political leaders should promote respect for diversity, combat negative stereotypes and disinformation, discourage discriminatory treatment, and support equality of opportunity. According to Art. 4 ICERD, State parties have to penalize racist hate speech, including dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial hatred, and acts of racially motivated violence. Political, business, cultural, community and religious leaders can help raise awareness, promote respect, and condemn racism. Recommended actions further include working with media to eliminate negative stereotyping and emphasize positive aspects of diversity, and with the education sector to incorporate multi-cultural and diversity training in curricula and strengthen capacities for awareness raising and social norms change. Training and capacity-building are important tools to improve knowledge and skills to work on this agenda. Trainings should be conducted regularly and systematically to strengthen capacity over time. Trainers need to have demonstrated skill and expertise in anti-racism work. Efforts should be tailored to the relevant stakeholders and relate to their respective role in raising awareness and contributing to social norms change. Training and capacity-building should target both internalized biases and institutional norms and practices. Deeper understandings of its structural causes, historical trajectories and how they shape current inequities are an important prerequisite to sustainable change in social norms and behaviors. Education, teaching and culture are key sectors for social norms change. As recognized in Art. 7 ICERD, measures should be undertaken, particularly in the fields of teaching, education, culture and information to combat prejudices, and to promote tolerance. Related efforts include developing and strengthening radio and television programs, social media campaigns, and teaching materials. Education systems and educational institutions are key in addressing racial and intersecting forms of discrimination. Depending on the national context and existing efforts, MENA countries can work with partner organizations to strengthen responses through the education sector. This may include developing education policies to support schools on this agenda, training teachers and staff, as well as reviewing and revising curricula and textbooks to promote diverse perspectives and eliminate racist depictions, misinformation and exclusions. Addressing racial and other forms of discrimination in education is important for fostering an equitable learning environment and contributing to social norms change over time. 47 7.5 INCLUSIVE LAWS AND POLICIES WITH STRONG IMPLEMENTATION FRAMEWORKS Legislative reforms play a key role in addressing discrimination and promoting equal access. Acknowledging country-driven efforts to address racism and exclusion and the integration of equality and non-discrimination provisions in various laws,6 7 legislation and implementation of existing legal and policy frameworks can be strengthened. Despite the evidence of socio- economic consequences of structural discrimination, the region lacks adequate legal and policy frameworks to protect racial/racialized groups, as well as targeted policies and programs to close gaps in education, employment, and access to services. Countries should adopt and implement relevant international standards, including those pertaining to the protection of non-nationals as identified in ILO Conventions. This may further include follow up on recommendations provided by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, other relevant treaty bodies and special procedures. National legislation should be developed or strengthened to add specific provisions against racial discrimination, to integrate measures to ensure implementation and to assure effective judicial, administrative, or other remedies, including for non-citizens. National strategies or action plans can serve as catalysts for stronger engagement on addressing racism and intersecting forms of discrimination. Legal and policy frameworks aimed at closing identified gaps for racial/racialized groups should entail specific goals and targets, clear responsibilities for implementation, high-level oversight, intersectoral coordination mechanisms, and systematic monitoring of progress. They require broad coordination with relevant stakeholders, including active participation of impacted groups, and should respond to challenges and barriers at all levels, including with regard to the labor market, health, education, housing, social protection and social security, access to goods and services, as well as issues related to residency, citizenship and protection. Administrative measures and practices can be effective in discouraging discrimination and fostering equality. These may include technical advice and guidance, contract compliance, codes of conduct, etc. Implementing agencies or stakeholders need to be equipped with adequate mandates and sufficient resources. Regular inter-agency collaboration helps facilitate coordination among relevant ministries and agencies. These collaboration mechanisms should include representatives from CSOs, businesses, or other non- state partners. To ensure sustainability, national strategies or action plans should entail measures for long-term impact in the national context. Effective monitoring and evaluation are critical to measure progress over time. National strategies, action plans or other policy measures should include a monitoring framework to assess the implementation of measures, identify remaining gaps and adjust objectives where necessary. Independent bodies can be appointed and equipped to oversee monitoring and evaluation at the 6 For example, Tunisia was the first country in the region to adopt a stand-alone law that criminalizes racial discrimination. Law 50 of 2018 prescribes one to three months in prison for racist language, one to three years for inciting hatred, disseminating ideas about racial superiority, or supporting a racist organization. The law also commits the state to undertake awareness and training campaigns and the creation of a National Commission against Racial Discrimination to present an annual report to the parliament. See Grewal, S. (2018). In another first, Tunisia criminalizes racism. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/10/15/in-another-first-tunisia-criminalizes-racism/ 7 Additionally, Algeria adopted a law that criminalizes hate speech and discrimination in 2020 and calls for the creation of a National Observatory for the prevention of discrimination and hate speech. See King, S. (2021). Invisibility and Negrophobia in Algeria. Arab Reform Initiative. https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/invisibility-and-negrophobia-in-algeria/ 48 country-level, where possible. Findings should be communicated transparently, e.g., through parliamentary bodies and/or local authorities. Improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity is at the core of inclusive development efforts. Disadvantage and exclusion based on gender, age, location, occupation, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship status, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity, among other factors, inhibits individuals’ opportunity to lead a better life. As underlined through the intersectional approach, sustainable inclusive growth and rapid poverty reduction are difficult to achieve unless the root causes of structural exclusion and discrimination are addressed. Persistent exclusion can be costly, both to individuals and economies. Among survey respondents, experiencing discrimination was clearly associated with lower life satisfaction, wellbeing and perceived security. Exclusion can also increase social tensions, risks of violence and conflict, with substantial long-term social and economic costs. As illustrated by the survey findings related to citizen respondents in FCV countries, conflict and violence can exacerbate existing marginalization along racial/racialized lines and create new vulnerable groups. To improve the wellbeing of all population groups, strengthen their access to markets, services and spaces, and ensure the full realization of rights, countries should engage with development partners in increased efforts to adopt specific legislation, policy reforms and implementation frameworks, including through national strategies or action plans. Through a range of measures, efforts to enhance inclusion should be integrated into operational engagement across sectors, regarding employment, education, health, social protection and social security, including for non- citizens. 49 APPENDIX: POOLED ANALYSIS Figure 5.1: Perceived reasons for chronic discrimination, all countries Figure 5.2: Perceived reasons for experiencing chronic discrimination, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Dots show mean values. Sample includes only respondents surveyed countries. Dots show mean values; bars show 95 per cent confidence who experienced chronic discrimination. interval around estimated means. Sample includes only respondents who experienced at least one type of chronic discrimination. Figure 5.3: Perceived reasons for chronic discrimination by gender, age, Figure 5.4: Perceived reasons for experiencing chronic discrimination and income, all countries by gender, age, income, and Black/Afro-origin, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022 Data pooled across all Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Sample includes only respondents who experienced chronic surveyed countries. Sample includes only respondents who experienced at least discrimination. Groups shown in descending order of percentage of respondents one type of chronic discrimination. Respondents could list more than one reason that said that discrimination was due to race/ethnicity. for discrimination. Groups shown in descending order of percentage of respondents that said that discrimination was due to race/ethnicity. 50 Figure 5.5: Interpersonal discrimination by income level, all countries Figure 5.6 Unemployment and low income by Black/Afro-origin, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values. Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Dots show mean values for each group. T-test results for differences in means between Black/Afro-origin and non-Black/Afro-origin respondents are shown in Appendix 5A, Table 5A.2. Figure 5.7: Interpersonal discrimination by household income level, all Figure 5.8: Perceived reasons for chronic discrimination by gender, all countries countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all countries. Dots show mean values for each group. T-test results for differences in surveyed countries. Dots show mean values. Sample includes only respondents means between low and high income respondents are shown in Appendix 5A, Table who experienced chronic discrimination. 5A.2. Figure 5.9: Interpersonal discrimination by gender, all countries Figure 5.10: Unemployment and low income by gender, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values. Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values. 51 Figure 5.11: Perceived reasons for experiencing chronic discrimination Figure 5.12: Interpersonal discrimination by gender, all countries by gender, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Sample includes only respondents who experienced at least surveyed countries. Dots show mean values for each group. T-test results for one type of chronic discrimination. Respondents could list more than one reason differences in means between males and females are shown in Appendix 5A, for discrimination. Table 5A.2. Figure 5.13: Interpersonal discrimination by age, all countries Figure 5.14: Interpersonal discrimination by age, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values. Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Dots show mean values for each group. T-test results for differences in means between younger and older respondents are shown in Appendix 5A, Table 5A.2. 52 Figure 5.15: Unemployment and low income by age, all countries Figure 5.16 Unemployment and low income by age, all countries Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Dots show mean values. Source: Quality of Life Surveys, World Bank, 2022. Data pooled across all surveyed countries. Dots show mean values for each group. 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