CourcyInt
Pointers to Mideast radicalism - 21 April 2005
COURCYINT SPECIAL BULLETIN
To: All Courcy's Intelligence Service members
Date: 21 April 2005
From: JKC de Courcy, Chief Executive, Courcy's Intelligence Service
Subject: Pointers to Mideast radicalism
DEVELOPMENT:
On Sunday (17 April), the World Bank published what is to be the first in an annual series of reports on "Economic Developments and Prospects" in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
ANALYSIS:
We reviewed the World Bank's 2005 Economic Developments and Prospects for the MENA region in the 21 April issue of Courcy's Intelligence Review. We highlighted some of the positive aspects of the report (such as average economic growth of 5.6% in 2003 and 2004), but we also drew attention to some serious negatives.
Most seriously, 100m new jobs will be needed over the next 20 years to keep pace with new entrants to the job market and to absorb the current unemployed, and to achieve this target MENA will need average annual growth rates of 6%-7%. This will not be achieved without reforms (the current boom is almost entirely attributable to the high price of oil), yet the World Bank reports that MENA has been "the weakest [region] in the world" with regard to reforming the business environment.
We concluded that the World Bank's new annual series on economic developments and prospects in the Middle East and North Africa could, amongst other things, provide an important pointer to the future of radicalism in the region. In view of this, subscribers might like to read the whole report in full. The report can be accessed via the following link:
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