Inclusive growth in MENA: employment and poverty dimensions in a comparative context

Interest in the relationship between growth and equity has deep roots and a long history in economic thinking and development debates. Traditionally, thinking has been divided between those who favour focusing on efficiency and growth as the best way to overcome poverty and inequality and those who advocate explicit policies to assist the poor even if this might come at the expense of a slower overall growth rate (Bourguignon, 2000: 2). In recent years, however, thinking
has evolved beyond such a presumed trade-off with calls for a better and more integrated understanding of the relationship between growth and distribution.

Asia’s recent experience of rapid and sustained growth has contributed to this re-thinking by demonstrating that considerable poverty reduction is possible in the face of persistent, and widening, inequalities. This has in turn led to a sharper differentiation between policies dedicated to fighting poverty and those aiming to improve equality, and more generally, to greater interest in making growth more ‘inclusive’ to benefit the widest social and economic groupings.