The report highlights the problems that the MENA region is facing today: mass unemployment throughout the whole region, especially among young people and women; structural problems of unskilled young people, as well as underemployment; rising poverty; rising informal employment; increasing child labour; lack of fundamental freedoms; and the heritage of (neoliberal) perspectives from former authoritarian regimes.

These persistent problems are putting the socio-economic future of the MENA region in jeopardy and can lead to rising poverty and inequalities, which in turn can endanger the already fragile democratic stability. The lack of employment prospects, furthermore, can induce a “brain-drain” phenomenon and provide a potential breeding ground for religious extremism.

To that end, SOLIDAR and partners from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia recommend that the EU prioritise the following aspects in the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership:

§ Promote the respect for labour rights and decent work: stimulate the extension of labour laws to the informal sector covering the people in it with benefits and taxing their revenue.

§ Improve the access and coverage of quality services: provide support to extend public and social services both in coverage and quality to all, to ensure an inclusive society, and through that build inclusive development strategies and perspectives.

§ Ensure income support, especially to the most excluded people in society, and support the set-up of social protection floors.

§ Empower civil society to foster the reform process and rebuild democracy.

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