Israel Osorio-Rodarte

How significant is Africa's demographic dividend for its future growth and poverty reduction ?

Africa will be undergoing substantial demographic changes in the coming decades with the rising working age share of its population. The opportunity of African countries to convert these changes into demographic dividends for growth and poverty reduction will depend on several factors. The outlook will likely be good if African countries can continue the gains already made under better institutions and policies, particularly those affecting the productivity of labor, such as educational outcomes. If African countries can continue to build on the hard-won development gains, the demographic dividend could account for 11 to 15 percent of gross domestic product volume growth by 2030, while accounting for 40 to 60 million fewer poor in 2030. The gains can become much more substantial with even better educational outcomes that allow African countries to catch up to other developing countries. If the skill share of Africas labor supply doubles because of improvements in educational attainment, from 25 to about 50 percent between 2011 and 30, then the demographic dividends can expand the regional economy additionally by 22 percent by 2030 relative to the base case and reduce poverty by an additional 51 million people.

How Significant Is Sub‐Saharan Africa's Demographic Dividend for Its Future Growth and Poverty Reduction?

Sub‐Saharan Africa will be undergoing substantial demographic changes over the next 15 years with the rising working‐age share of its population. The opportunity of African countries to convert these changes into demographic dividends for growth and poverty reduction will depend on several factors. The outlook will likely be good if African countries can continue the gains already made under better institutions and policies, particularly those affecting the productivity of labor, such as educational outcomes. If African countries can continue to build on the hard‐won development gains, the demographic dividend could account for 11–15% of gross domestic product (GDP) volume growth by 2030, while accounting for 40–60 million fewer poor in 2030. The gains can become more substantial with better educational outcomes that allow African countries to catch up to other developing countries. If the skill share of Africas labor supply doubles because of improvements in educational attainment, from 25 to about 50% between 2011 and 2030, then the demographic dividends can expand the regional economy additionally by 22% by 2030 relative to the base case and reduce poverty by an additional 51 million people.

Sustainable development goal diagnostics : the case of the Arab Republic of Egypt

The United Nations 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals are comprehensive and holistic in nature, encompassing 17 goals and 169 targets covering economic, social, and environmental dimensions of development. Countries face the challenge of translating the Sustainable Development Goals into feasible and realistic development plans. This paper provides a simple analytical framework to assist countries in prioritizing across competing Sustainable Development Goals and evaluating data availability to monitor them. The paper offers an analysis of potential financial resources that can be used to finance the investments needed to implement the 2030 Agenda. It uses cross-country regressions of the Sustainable Development Goals to benchmark a countrys current outcomes against those of other countries, given levels of gross national income per capita, and projects its levels in 2030 if a statistically significant relationship exists with gross national income per capita. The paper applies the framework to the Arab Republic of Egypt and as such, summarizes Egypts progress on the Sustainable Development Goals since 2000 and projects expected values for the attainment of future targets by 2030; (b) provides an assessment of Egypts current capacity to produce the data needed to monitor the Sustainable Development Goals, and (c) assesses options for increasing financing for development. Finally, the paper compares Egypts economic condition and trends with those of its peers, the Republic Korea and Poland.

Assessing the global economic and poverty effects of antimicrobial resistance

This paper assesses the potential impact of antimicrobial resistance on global economic growth and poverty. The analysis uses a global computable general equilibrium model and a microsimulation framework that together capture impact channels related to health, mortality, labor productivity, health care financing, and production in the livestock and other sectors. The effects spread across countries via trade flows that may be affected by new trade restrictions. Relative to a world without antimicrobial resistance, the losses during 2015–50 may sum to

Global Inequality in a More Educated World

85 trillion in gross domestic product and

A Product Space Perspective on Structural Change in Morocco

23 trillion in global trade (in present value). By 2050, the cost in global gross domestic product could range from 1.1 percent (low case) to 3.8 percent (high case). Antimicrobial resistance is expected to make it more difficult to eliminate extreme poverty. Under the high antimicrobial resistance scenario, by 2030, an additional 24.1 million people would be extremely poor, of whom 18.7 million live in low-income countries. In general, developing countries will be hurt the most, especially those with the lowest incomes.

Stress-Testing Africa's Recent Growth and Poverty Performance

In developing countries, younger and better-educated cohorts are entering the workforce. This developing world-led education wave is altering the skill composition of the global labor supply, and impacting income distribution, at the national and global levels. This paper analyzes how this education wave reshapes global inequality over the long run using a general-equilibrium macro-micro simulation framework that covers harmonized household surveys representing almost 90 percent of the world population. The findings under alternative assumptions suggest that global income inequality will likely decrease by 2030. This increasing educated labor force will contribute to the closing of the gap in average incomes between developing and high income countries. The forthcoming education wave would also minimize, mainly for developing countries, potential further increases of within-country inequality.

Country development diagnostics : post-2015

Drawing on international trade data, this paper uses the product space approach to analyze changes in Morocco’s goods exports in 1990–2010 and future export priorities. The level of Morocco’s gross domestic product and its moderate growth match the predictions of product space analysis, informed by changes in the income potential of Morocco’s export basket, reflecting relatively strong capabilities (a high density) in products with relatively low potentials in income and diversification. Morocco’s peripheral position in the product space map matches its slow growth and points to the difficulty of diversification into more sophisticated products. Encouraging changes since 1990 include the development of a revealed comparative advantage for medium- and high-tech manufactures, which in 2010 represented around 40 percent of total goods exports. However, the number of goods involved is relatively small and this transformation has not sufficed to raise per capita growth to the average for middle-income countries. Export projections up to 2025 suggest that future developments will follow the trends of the past. Among sectors, high growth is likely for phosphate-based fertilizer exports. However, like edible oil products, which also may grow rapidly, phosphates are hampered by low income and diversification potentials. Along with various other manufactured products, electronics and the automotive industry are promising sectors that may offer more lasting positive contributions to Morocco’s future development. Beyond goods, Morocco’s policy makers should also consider the potential contributions of service exports, which in recent years have enjoyed rapid growth.