Person:
Mahgoub, Ayah

Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice
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Fields of Specialization
Urban development, City competitiveness, Municipal finance
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ORCID
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Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Ayah Mahgoub is a senior urban development specialist at the World Bank. She leads urban and territorial development lending and analytical projects in Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and for MENA more broadly. She is also one of the leads of the WB knowledge groups on competitive cities and results-based financing. Her focus areas currently are urban and territorial development, city competitiveness, intergovernmental fiscal systems and municipal finance, smart cities, and results-based financing. She completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in economics and international development at Harvard University. Prior to joining the WB, she worked for the Center for Global Development, Development Innovation Ventures / USAID, and the Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi. She has also worked on urban development in New York City, economic integration of minorities in France, peace-building initiatives in Sudan, and on Latin America.

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2020 - 202422000 - 20191
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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Performance-Based Fiscal Transfers for Urban Local Governments: Results and Lessons from Two Decades of World Bank Financing
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Lee, Hyunji; Athar, Sohaib; Steffensen, Jesper; White, Roland; Mahgoub, Ayah
    The ability of cities and municipalities to effectively deliver infrastructure and services and productively manage built environments and local economies depends on their institutional capabilities, quality of local governance, and financial resources at their disposal. Therefore, a core priority of governments is to strengthen the financial and institutional systems for cities and municipalities to enable them to perform these functions. One tool the World Bank has used to address this challenge over the past two decades is performance-based fiscal transfers to urban local governments - a type of financing mechanism designed to improve institutional and service delivery performance of these local governments. Generally known as ‘Urban Performance Grants’, these are fiscal transfers from a higher level of government conditioned on achieving performance in predetermined areas. The Bank’s Global Practice for Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land has implemented a large financing portfolio of such programs across several countries. This report takes stock of the results and implementation experience of these programs and identifies key lessons and good practices for the design of the next generation of such programs. Based on a review of nine financing programs across seven countries, it shows that they have generally been effective in delivering results in line with their development objectives and have improved the delivery of urban infrastructure and service delivery in their targeted areas. The report concludes by providing guidance on improving the sustainability of these programs within country systems and promoting local action for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
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    Subnational Competitiveness Grants Guidebook: A Tool to Promote Jobs and Economic Transformation in Cities and Regions through Performance-Based Financing
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Salhab, Jade; Hristova, Diana; Athar, Sohaib; Mahgoub, Ayah
    This report is a guidebook for practitioners to promote policy actions that strengthen competitiveness at the subnational level. It introduces Subnational Competitiveness Grants (SCGs) as an innovative approach in which well-tested tools for competitiveness policy and subnational government performance can be leveraged to advance the jobs and economic transformation agenda at the subnational level. SCGs are a type of intergovernmental fiscal instrument where fiscal transfers are provided to subnational governments to achieve improvements in competitiveness and local economic development. SCGs can enhance competitiveness by increasing the capacity, mandate, and incentives of subnational governments to affect relevant policy levers. This instrument builds on The World Bank’s 2015 report on Competitive Cities for Jobs and Growth which provided a conceptual framework on how cities and subnational regions can become more competitive and create economic growth and quality jobs. This guidebook first discusses the relevance of subnational governments in enhancing competitiveness and shows that performance-based fiscal transfers can be a useful tool in incentivizing and capacitating subnational governments to support local competitiveness in particular contexts. The second part of the guidebook provides detailed guidance on the appropriate design and implementation of this instrument. This guidebook will be relevant for a wide variety of policymakers and practitioners, including national and subnational governments, program designers, and others interested in subnational and city competitiveness.
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    Leveraging Urbanization to Promote a New Growth Model While Reducing Territorial Disparities in Morocco: Urban and Regional Development Policy Note
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-06-14) Lall, Somik; Mahgoub, Ayah; Maria, Augustin; Touati, Anastasia; Acero, Jose Luis
    Today 60 percent of Moroccans reside in urban areas, as opposed to 35 percent in 1970. By 2050, nearly three-quarters of the country’s population will be living in cities. Along with the concentration of people, urbanization will lead to the increasing concentration of economic activities in cities, which today are estimated to account for about 75 percent of the country’s GDP and 70 percent of investments at the national level. To accompany these transformations, the Moroccan government has adopted, in recent years, ambitious programs to improve living standards in urban and rural areas. Significant improvements in living standards have been achieved through national master plans. Cities are the engines of today’s demographic and economic growth in Morocco, but they also face persistent challenges. Despite substantial public investments and strong potential for cities to absorb rural poverty, important pockets of urban poverty remain. Spatial disparities are a major cause for concern both for citizens as well as for national and local governments. In addition, Moroccan cities are not delivering on their full potential. Urbanization has not generated the same growth benefits in Morocco as it has in many other countries with similar contexts. These patterns suggest that Morocco needs specific policies to improve returns from its urbanization process. The main message of this note is that urbanization and spatial equity are not competing objectives when urbanization is supported and managed well. Well-managed urbanization allows for economies of scale in the provision of services and the development of more efficient labor. This note identifies priority actions to be taken at national, regional, and local levels to allow public authorities to act within a coherent framework and to help urban development to boost economic growth and promote shared prosperity for all.