doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/40138

Person:
Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan

Senior Economist, Social Protection and Jobs, World Bank

Author Name Variants

Ajwad, Ishan

Fields of Specialization

Human Capital, Jobs, Labor Economics, Social Protection, and Public Economics

External Links

Google Scholar
World Bank Blogs
ResearchGate

Departments

Social Protection and Jobs, World Bank

Last updated: November 12, 2024

Biography

Worked at the World Bank in Washington DC for 23 years. Extensive experience leading analytical and advisory services, Reimbursable Advisory Services, and lending operations. Strong understanding of government institutions and service delivery. An applied microeconomist, with interests in human capital, jobs, labor economics, social protection, and public economics. Conducted policy dialog at the highest levels in high-, middle-, and low-income countries in the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Full item page

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Unlocking Opportunities: Empowering Women in Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Saudi Arabia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-02) Pankratova, Ekaterina; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan; Alrayess, Dana Jasmine; Loots, Sonja; Duell, Nikola; de Moraes, Gael
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 promotes women’s skill development and their advancement in the labor market. Since 2017, Saudi Arabia has seen the fastest progress in reducing barriers to women’s access to labor markets by advancing reforms regarding guardianship, mobility, protection of women in the workplace, entrepreneurship and access to financing, and retirement age. One of its approaches has been to empower women through upskilling, training, and lifelong learning. In recent years, many Saudi women have entered the labor market; however, further interventions are necessary to fully realize the contribution women can make to economic and social advancement. Several studies around the world have shown that women’s participation in vocational education and training has a direct relationship with Labor force participation (LFP). In recent years, Saudi Arabia has reformed its Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system. These reforms have broadened TVET institutions’ educational offerings for women and promoted TVET as a viable pathway to the labor market. Despite this progress, persistent challenges remain. Women’s LFP rates in all age groups remain just slightly above half of those for men, and women who graduate from postsecondary vocational educational institutions still face considerable disadvantages in finding a job, compared to their male peers. Women’s participation in TVET plays an important role in working toward the national strategic goals set out in Vision 2030. This report takes stock of Saudi Arabia’s achievements in enabling women to develop skills, identifies remaining challenges, and presents international best practices on how to address gender barriers in TVET, upskilling, and lifelong learning. The report concludes by identifying key areas of strategic policy interventions that can further gender equity within the country’s skills-development system.
The Care Boom: Addressing Care Through Technical and Vocational Education in Saudi Arabia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-12) Fostier De Moraes, Gael; Duell, Nicola; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
This report, written at the request of the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) in Saudi Arabia, explores the importance of addressing care challenges in Saudi Arabia. The report examines the size and composition of the care workforce, identifies the population of care recipients, and estimates labor shortages across care occupations. The report benchmarks Saudi Arabia with other comparator countries, mostly Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and reviews international experiences in training the care workforce, particularly through TVET. Finally, recommendations are provided to address current and projected care challenges in Saudi Arabia and to serve as a roadmap for strengthening the care sector, with a focus on the role of TVTC in professionalizing the care workforce.
Towards a National Jobs Strategy in Kuwait
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Koettl, Johannes; Radwan, Ismail; Farole, Thomas; Sanchez-Reaza, Javier; Chartouni, Carole; Alaref, Jumana Jamal Subhi; Rivera, Nayib; Sundararaman, Venkatesh; Afif, Zeina; Dexter, Gharam Alkastalani; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
This report is one of the main deliverables outlined in the legal arrangement of September 10, 2019, between the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GS-SCPD) in Kuwait and the World Bank. A separate overview report is also available. The social contract in Kuwait is at risk. Kuwaiti citizens are used to the state providing public sector jobs, free education, free healthcare, and subsidized fuel to all citizens. These benefits have been bought and paid for using Kuwait’s oil revenues, however, the sustainability of the social contract has been questioned by three mutually reinforcing challenges. First, oil demand is projected to steadily decline the next few decades. This decline is partly the result of changing consumer preferences away from carbon-based fuel sources, and partly the result of increasingly cost-effective alternative energy sources becoming available. Second, with mounting fiscal deficits, the size of the wage bill for the government is a growing concern. Third, the needs in the labor market will continue to grow as Kuwait’s population is young and growing. Central to these structural challenges are challenges to Kuwait’s labor market. A growing number of young Kuwaitis are entering the labor market with high expectations of well-paid, secure, public sector jobs. In the private sector, employers are dependent on low-cost and largely unskilled foreign workers. The 2019 COVID-19 global pandemic, which has led to an oil price crisis and a global economic slowdown, has intensified the debate surrounding jobs challenges in Kuwait. These jobs challenges need to be addressed to ensure the sustainability of the economic growth model and avoid major social disruption. The government has asked The World Bank for assistance to formulate a National Jobs Strategy to help confront these challenges, based on evidence and best practices. Reforms are recommended in four areas, or pillars: (i) make the public sector more sustainable, (ii) improve human capital, (iii) support private sector growth, and (iv) build a social protection system. In addition, the jobs strategy covers two cross-cutting themes: behavioral economics, and monitoring and evaluation, also embedded in the four pillars. This introduction briefly explains the critical challenges facing Kuwait that require substantial changes in policy. The subsequent sections analyze the major issues of these four topics, with recommendations for policy change to improve sustainability and enhance incomes.
Female-Worker Representation Effect: Gender Pay Variation in the Kuwaiti Civil Service
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-05) Bilo, Simon; Nguyen, Ha; AlAnsari, Ebtesam; AlHumaidan, Lama; AlRashidi, Faleh; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
Kuwaiti women working in Kuwait’s civil service earn, on average, 18 percent less than Kuwaiti men. Using a unique data set of all Kuwaiti nationals working in Kuwait’s civil service, this paper analyzes the relationship between wages, gender, and the relative dominance of women in occupations and workplaces. The main finding is that an important portion of the association between gender and wages is explained not by human capital but by occupational and workplace segregation of men and women. Occupations with a higher ratio of women to men tend to have lower wages for both genders when compared to workers in occupations with a lower ratio of women to men. This finding is especially true for women. Workplaces with a higher female-to-male ratio exhibit lower male wages but slightly higher female wages than workplaces with lower female-to-male workplace ratios. The paper calls this latter novel finding the female-worker representation effect.
Tracing Labor Market Outcomes of Technical and Vocational Training Graduates in Saudi Arabia: A Study on Graduates from the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01) Rivera, Nayib; Azam, Mehtabul; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
This paper exploits a rich dataset from various administrative sources to study short- and medium-term labor market outcomes of vocational education and training graduates in Saudi Arabia. It examines five cohorts of graduates from institutes operated by the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation who are formally employed in the private sector. The outcome measures for the study are based on monthly earnings data from the private sector social insurance records covering up to five years after graduation for the first cohort. The analysis finds positive returns to technical and vocational education are sustained over time. However, program orientation and economic conditions at the time of graduation appears to impact wages. Furthermore, vocational education and training in Saudi Arabia is associated with higher job mobility after graduation from the program. Students’ mobility premium is enhanced by completion of the program, suggesting improved skills signaling and utilization contributing to higher returns to vocational education and training. The analysis identifies several challenges and opportunities to further improve outcomes of graduates, such as reducing the gender gap in labor market outcomes of female graduates and reducing the high incidence of vertical mismatch among graduates’ field-of-study selection and the occupations group in which they are employed.
School Is Closed: Simulating the Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic–Related School Disruptions in Kuwait
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-05-05) Bilo, Simon; AlAnsari, Ebtesam; AlHumaidan, Lama; Alrashidi, Faleh M F E; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
The schooling disruption caused by COVID-19 in Kuwait is among the longest in the world. Using the similarities between the schooling disruptions due to the Gulf War and the schooling disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this note shows that students in school during the COVID-19 pandemic face significant reductions in the present value of their lifetime income. Furthermore, the findings show that students in higher grades during the pandemic are likely to face larger reductions in lifetime earnings than students in lower grades. Kuwaiti females in secondary school who will become civil service workers face a reduction of close to $40,000. The corresponding reduction for males is more than $70,000.
The Long Shadow of Short-Term Schooling Disruption: Analysis of Kuwait's Civil Service Payroll Data
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04) Bilo, Simon; Alansari, Ebtesam; Alhumaidan, Lama; AlRashidi, Faleh; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
This paper estimates the long-term impacts of schooling disruptions on private returns to schooling in Kuwait. It applies an instrumental variables approach to estimate the private returns to schooling, using unique civil service payroll data, with Kuwaiti students’ exposure to the Gulf War (1990–91) as the instrument. The Gulf War is a suitable instrument because it profoundly affected Kuwaiti students' schooling at the time and is unlikely to be correlated with many potentially problematic omitted variables, such as students’ ability. The analysis finds that (i) people who were of schooling age during the Gulf War tend to have lower educational attainment than people who were of schooling age after the Gulf War; (ii) men who were of schooling age at the time of the Gulf War earn on average 5.6 percent less for each year of schooling lost, and women earn correspondingly 6.8 percent less for each year of schooling lost; (iii) students who were in lower grades during the Gulf War tend to suffer a greater percentage wage loss for each year of lost schooling.
Fostering Human Capital in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-06-19) Kheyfets, Igor; El-Saharty, Sameh; Herbst, Christopher H.; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
The formation of human capital--the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lifetimes--is critical for the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Human capital contributes not only to□ human development and employment but also to the long-term sustainability of a diversified economic growth model that is knowledge based and private sector driven. This approach is critical, given that income from oil and gas will eventually decline and that the nature of work is evolving in response to rapid technological changes, in turn demanding new skill sets. The GCC governments have demonstrated their strong political will for □this shift: four of them are among the first countries to join the World □Bank’s Human Capital Project—a global effort to improve investments in people as measured by the Human Capital Index. The GCC countries face four main challenges: Low levels of basic proficiency among schoolchildren; A mismatch between education and the labor market; A relatively high rate of adult mortality and morbidity; A unique labor market , in which wages in the public sector are more generous than in the private sector and government employment of nationals is virtually guaranteed To address these challenges, this report outlines four strategies in a “whole-of-government” approach: Investing in high-quality early childhood development; Preparing healthier, better educated, and skilled youth for the future; Enabling greater adult labor force participation; Creating an enabling environment for human capital formation These strategies are based on best practices in other countries and feature some of the GCC countries’ plans, including their national “Visions,” to take their economies and societies further into the twenty-first century. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the GCC countries face additional challenges that may worsen some preexisting vulnerabilities and erode human capital. In response, the GCC governments have taken multiple measures to protect their populations’ health and their economies. Any□ country’s decision to reopen its economy needs to closely consider public health consequences to avoid a resurgence of infections and any further erosion of its human capital. The COVID-19 crisis underscores that the need to accelerate and improve investment in human capital has never been greater. Once the GCC countries return to a “new normal,” they will be in a position to achieve diversified and sustainable growth by adopting, and then tailoring, the strategies presented in this report.
Financing Social Protection in Tanzania
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10-01) Abels, Miglena; Novikova, Marina; Mohammed, Muderis Abdulahi; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
This note assesses whether social protection programs are adequately financed in mainland Tanzania. We find that social protection programs are an important component of Government expenditures, and complements other Government social spending, including education and health spending. In recent years, the Government has strengthened social protection by: (i) increasing social protection expenditures; (ii) shifting social assistance from generally inefficient food and in-kind programs to more efficient cash-based programs; (iii) shifting social assistance from relatively untargeted programs to those which are targeted to poor people; and (iv) easing demand side constraints faced by households investing in human capital. Despite these positive developments, challenges to social protection remain: (i) social assistance and employment programs remain underfunded relative to the needs of the population; (ii) development partner financing remains crucial even though they are prone to external risks; (iii) little isknown about which social welfare services and employment programs work well; (iv) many pensionparameters are not in line with best-practice and therefore, sustainability can be improved; (v) generalized subsidies, which are notoriously bad instruments to target poor people, are absorbing Government resources in a tight fiscal environment.
Jobs in the Kyrgyz Republic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06) Gonzalez, Sarah Berger; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
Since its independence in 1991, the Kyrgyz Republic has taken steps to liberalize its economy and adopt political reforms with the aim of promoting sustained economic growth. The Kyrgyz Republic was one of the first former Soviet republics to implement economic reforms and to move toward a market-based economy. The multiple economic and political reforms that have been implemented, together with regional and global trends, have dramatically changed the structure of the economy in the Kyrgyz Republic. Immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, the lack of jobs caused workers to shift toward employment in the agricultural sector. This report employs a simple framework to analyze the main constraints to jobs outcomes in the Kyrgyz Republic. There are three main categories of constraints, in order of their impact are: (i) labor demand constraints, (ii) labor supply constraints, and (iii) labor matching constraints. These constraints limit job creation, job productivity, job quality, and job inclusiveness. The Kyrgyz Republic has a large informal sector which means that policymakers need to understand the constraints to productivity growth in the informal as well as the formal sector. The framework adopted here does not distinguish between formal and informal sectors. The framework is fleshed out in more detail in Chapter III, but the introduction provides a brief outline to help structure the report.