REALITY CHECK: FORECASTING GROWTH IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY
have monthly or quarterly information on industrial production—for the remaining nine economies, information is not readily available. Only eight economies report quarterly unemployment data, while none have monthly data. The benchmark country, Mexico, reports unemployment data monthly. A caveat is that the table does not consider quality. For example, definitions of unemployment may be inconsistent with international standards (Arezki and others 2020). Table II.1. MENA Macro Data Availability (as of January 2022) Countries
Algeria Bahrain Djibouti Egypt Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia United Arab Emirates West Bank and Gaza Yemen MENA Total: 19 Mexico
GDP Data
GDP Data latest (calendar year)
Industrial Production Index Data
Quarterly Quarterly Annually Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Annually Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Annually Quarterly Quarterly Quarterly Annually Quarterly: 15/19 Quarterly
Q2 2021 Q3 2021 2018 Q3 2021 Q3 2021 Q2 2021 Q3 2021 Q4 2020 Q4 2019 2014 Q3 2021 Q3 2021 Q3 2021 Q3 2021 2019 Q3 2021 Q2 2020 Q3 2021 2017
Quarterly n/a n/a Monthly Quarterly Quarterly Monthly n/a n/a n/a Quarterly n/a Monthly Monthly n/a Monthly n/a Monthly n/a Monthly or Quarterly: 10/19 Monthly
Q3 2021
Industrial Production Index latest (calendar year)
Unemployment Data
Q3 2021 Semi-Annually n/a Only Census n/a n/a September 2021 Quarterly Q3 2021 Quarterly Q2 2021 Only 2 years October 2021 Quarterly n/a Annually n/a only census n/a Labor force survey Q3 2021 Quarterly n/a Annually November 2021 Quarterly November 2021 Quarterly n/a Annually September 2021 Quarterly n/a Annually November 2021 Quarterly n/a only census
Unemployment Data latest (calendar year)
May 2019 2020 n/a Q3 2021 Q3 2021 2016 Q3 2021 2021 2018–2019 2013 Q3 2021 2020 Q2 2021 Q3 2021 2019 Q3 2021 2020 Q3 2021 2013
Quarterly: 8/19 October 2021
Monthly
November 2021
Sources: Country statistical office websites; government data portal websites; central bank websites and Ministry of Planning/Economy/Finance websites. Notes: n/a means information is not readily available. All data accessed as of January 2022. This table is not exhaustive, it has only surveyed country Statistical Office Websites, Government Data Portal Websites, Central Bank Websites and Ministry of Planning/Economy/Finance websites. Third-party websites were excluded from this survey. The table has been updated and verified by World Bank country economists. Mexico was selected as a comparator because it is an upper-middle-income economy with a well-functioning data ecosystem.
The lack of data at the macro-level is also reflected in the availability of micro-level data. This is documented by EkhatorMobayode and Hoogeveen (2021) for 20 MENA countries (including Malta). Census and survey data are often out of date. Only 13 of the 20 countries are current on their population census and nine out of 20 are up to date on their economic census. Only five of the 20 countries carried out an establishment survey recently and about half are up to date on their health, labor force, and consumption surveys. Furthermore, public accessibility of microdata is limited. Of the 140 potential microdata sets explored (seven data categories in 20 countries), 78 had been collected and 22 were accessible. Moreover, about a third of these 22 datasets were not accessible through the website of the National Statistics Office but had to be found on international microdata repositories, such as the World Bank, International Household Survey Network (IHSN) microdata library, IPUMS, Eurostat, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS).
Chapter II. Forecasting Growth when Data are Opaque
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