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Can worsening economies and increasing repression herald a new Arab Spring?
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Ten years after the Arab Spring, which brought hope for more dignity and better living conditions for people in the Middle East and North Africa, the region appears far from hopeful.

The situation is particularly bad in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco that cannot rely primarily on oil and gas exports. These three North African countries were the subjects of our research as part of the Radicalisation, Secularism and the Governance of Religion: European and Asian Perspectives (GREASE) project. They are highly dependent on tourism, textile exports and remittances.

COVID-19 has dealt a severe blow to all three economies as they all have strong informal economic sectors, where people live in very precarious conditions. All three have recorded a significant increase in unemployment figures.

According to a report released by the Egyptian Ministry of Finance, about 2.3 million Egyptians lost their jobs in the last quarter of 2020 due to the pandemic. In Morocco, a study by the High Commission for Planning (HCP) revealed that 322,000 people lost their jobs in 2020. In Tunisia, the Ministry of Development, Investment and International Cooperation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that around 274,500 jobs were lost in 2020.

The poor get poorer

Adding to this, Egypt and Tunisia have been experiencing strong devaluation of their national currencies against the US dollar and the euro since 2011. This amounts to over 10% on an annual average in Egypt and 5-6% in Tunisia. This has strongly contributed to the weakening of the lower and middle classes in the two countries.

According to a report by the World Bank, COVID-19 has pushed more people in the Middle East and North Africa into poverty. This applies also to the rich countries that export oil and gas – some of which are embroiled in the war in Yemen or the political and ideological confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/global-extremes/can-worsening-economies-and-increasing-repression-herald-new-arab-spring/