Language:
English
Pages:
1 Online-Ressource
Series Statement:
World Bank E-Library Archive
Series Statement:
Other papers
Abstract:
Iraq needs a strategy to make rapid progress in tackling its profound jobs challenges. Iraq is facing a jobs crisis of unprecedented proportions. It could foment a resurgence in violence unless the Government of Iraq makes credible and swift progress in job creation and reconstruction. To shape a longer-term vision, Iraq can look beyond its recent history of conflict, and to its past as a diversified economy and home of an educated workforce. However, in the short-term, neither private/ public sector hiring can create jobs at the desired scale without significant new policy action. The first-best solution for large-scale private sector job creation hinges on structural reforms that must begin now, but are achievable only in the medium to longer term. This paper provides a primer on options to deliver large-scale job creation in the short term, based on investments in construction, agriculture and agribusiness, small and medium enterprises, and vocational skills. Its aim is to outline workable steps for progress in a jobs crisis in a post-conflict situation. Because these steps focus on rapid impact at scale, rather than structural reform, they are less-than-ideal or second-best. A similar logic applies to financing options. Financing needs for jobs are large, and while business climate reforms are under way, first-best private investment in jobs will remain limited. Yet, the recent oil price hike offers the Government of Iraq a uniquely timely opportunity to make an investment in jobs
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