Over the past months, currency devaluation has reached record levels in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and more recently Iraq.
This currency crisis is the outcome of series of dramatic upheavals which have fallen upon the shoulders of communities across the MENA region over the past decade. The onset of the COVID pandemic comes as a devastating blow on top of the persistent economic issues endemic to the region: continued instability and conflict, high youth unemployment, stalled governance and economic reforms, resulting in highly fragmented social, economic and governance systems.
The response to such a challenge has to be innovative and ambitious in scope and mobilize actors at every level of society.
In this context, ACTED is implementing large scale programs to address the most pressing needs of the significant proportion of the population which has fallen into poverty, estimated by the ILO to represent an additional 14.3 million people.
Through the implementation of these programs and a desk review of regional and technical research, ACTED has developed a range of lessons learned and policy recommendations that highlight unique opportunities for circular economy and circular resource management strategies to catalyze the region’s economic recovery.
Please click here for access to our latest policy and program brief entitled ‘Circularity as a lifeline for MENA economies in distress’
ACTED’s recommendations include:
The policy and program brief relies on regional and country specific research, technical resources as well as feedback from ACTED’s program beneficiaries and key local stakeholders to outline specific prescriptive measures to be adopted as part of an economic recovery response.
While environmental preservation is often deprioritized or considered as non-essential in times of dire economic crisis, this briefing serves to highlight how the current context of sharp economic decline in MENA has triggered numerous unique opportunities for promoting a circular economy and circular resource management which could have catalytic effects in economic recovery. In these contexts, circular approaches have the potential to stimulate job creation, increase value extraction, increase productivity, reduce government expenditures and improve access.