The gathering focused on fighting corruption, boosting the private sector and creating jobs. Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani spoke of “social pressure, expectations, aspirations and pressures from the population”, calling for emergency programmes. An austerity budget in Tunisia, along with increases in value-added taxes, sent demonstrators out onto the streets in early January. He said Tunisia’s post-uprising transition had made the country “freer” but generated instability that had deterred investment. As a region, the Middle East and North Africa has one of the lowest employment rates in the world, partly because of low women’s participation in the workforce, according to a recent IMF report.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 30, 2018 14:48 UTC