Publication: Jordan Economic Monitor, Spring 2017: The Green Economic Boost
Loading...
Published
2017-06-01
ISSN
Date
2017-06-29
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Jordan Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies over the past six months. It presents findings from recent World Bank work on Jordan. It places them in a longer-term and global context, and assesses the implications of these developments and otherchanges in policy on the country’s outlook. Its coverage ranges from the macro-economy to financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. It is intended for a wide audience, including policy makers, business leaders, financial market participants, and thecommunity of analysts and professionals engaged in Jordan.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2017. Jordan Economic Monitor, Spring 2017: The Green Economic Boost. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27470 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Iran Economic Monitor, Spring 2017(Washington, DC, 2017-06-30)The Iran Economic Monitor provides an update on key economic developments and policies over the past six months. It examines these economic developments and policies in a longer-term and global context, and assesses their implications for the outlook for the country. Its coverage has ranged from the macroeconomy to financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. It is intended for a wide audience, including policy makers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Iran.Publication South Africa Economic Update, November 2011(Washington, DC, 2011-11)The global financial roller coaster, with the Euro zone as its lead car, has hit economic prospects across the globe. The South African economy, with its close links to the world economy, has suffered, too, resulting in weakened growth prospects, lower fiscal revenues, lower and more volatile valuation of the rand, and dampened external financing. This further compounds the policy challenges facing the authorities, on top of their preoccupation with unyielding unemployment, which requires higher and more inclusive economic growth. Policymaking is also conditioned by a growing recognition that future growth needs to be less carbon-intensive. As elsewhere, opportunities in green economies are viewed with keen interest, as a way of simultaneously targeting a cleaner environment and stimulating innovation, growth, and job creation. While green policies can have large synergies and co-benefits with the growth and employment agenda, they are not a substitute for it. Indeed, such synergies are likely to be mutually enhancing and larger when the growth and environment objectives are being pursued by multiple, well-targeted and coordinated policies.Publication Jordan - Development Policy Review : A Reforming State in a Volatile Region(Washington, DC, 2002-11-05)Since the early 1990s, Jordan has initiated efforts toward far-reaching stabilization and structural reform. The reforms have aimed at laying the foundations for a reduced role of the state, private-sector-export-oriented-growth, employment, poverty reduction, and overall improvement in the welfare of the population. Due to this intensive effort, inflation has been reduced, the current account of the balance of payments has been stabilized, and budget deficits have been reduced. In addition, structural reforms have encompassed domestic taxation/subsidy policies, trade liberalization policies, monetary/financial sector policies, exchange rate policies, administered prices, and privatization. The reforms initiated since 1989 have made Jordan one of the leaders of reform in the Middle East and north Africa region, despite its experiencing several changes in government and adverse external shocks in the 1990s. The country has further integrated into the global economy, with a major shift in trade policy that included an Association Agreement with the European Union in 1999, membership in the World Trade Organization in 2000, and a free-trade agreement with the USA in 2001. Jordan has achieved progress in privatization, most notably in public utilities. Despite deep structural reforms and macroeconomic stability, strong and sustainable growth in real output has been elusive. Three factors have been identified as major constraints to faster growth: 1) external volatility and adverse regional neighborhood effects; 2) slow response of private investment, both in its level and in terms of productivity; and 3) significant export competitiveness problems. Increasing growth performance as a means to reduce poverty and improve the welfare of Jordanians is the first key development challenge identified in this Development Policy Review. The other key development challenge in Jordan is to improve the quality and efficiency of its core public services. Efficient delivery of public services is especially critical in education and health and in the water sectors.Publication Jordan Economic Monitor, Fall 2017(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12)Jordan's economic performance remains tempered in 2017 while the fiscal adjustment is in progress; yet there are positive signs on the horizon. Real GDP growth for 2017 is expected to reach 2.1 percent, just a 0.1 percentage point (pp) increase from 2016. On the supply side, services continue to be the principal driver of GDP growth, and these are propelled by a robust performance in tourism. Jordan's industrial sector is expected to regain momentum based on a recovery in mining and quarrying as the effect of the drop in potash prices starts dissipating. On the demand side, private consumption and investment in addition to net exports of goods and services are projected to lead GDP growth. The combination of public consumption and public investment are expected to be a drag on GDP growth. The reliance of GDP growth on private demand, as opposed to public demand, is a welcomed change from growth patterns since 2014. As a result of the progress in net exports, the current account deficit is projected to narrow slightly to 8.8 percent of GDP.Publication Jordan Economic Monitor, Spring 2021(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-23)Despite recent progress on vaccine developments to combat the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the global economic recovery remains surrounded by high uncertainty. During the first half of 2020, global economic output declined by an unprecedented level, resulting in a sharp fall in global trade. The latest estimates from the IMF WEO in April 2021 indicate that the global economy contracted by 3.3 percent in 2020. This contraction is substantially deeper than one observed during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 - 08. However, recent trends are pointing toward a strong recovery for global economic activity in the second half of 2021 supported by substantial fiscal and monetary stimuli. Nevertheless, the extent of the protraction is closely linked to vaccine rollout, which is gaining critical mass in some developed economies, but remains uneven across the world. Indeed, the World Bank is projecting global economy to grow by 4 percent in 2021. Nevertheless, this global outlook retains an important country-specific component which depends on the adjustment capacity of each economy as well as the effectiveness of its policy to minimize permanent scarring to the economy as well as pace and scale of domestic vaccine rollout.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.