Working papers

The resilience of States is put to a severe test in times of major crises, particularly in the face of a pandemic which places a drastic strain on economic activities, disrupts the lifestyles of citizens, weakens social systems and puts pressure on sanitation structures, to mention just a few directly negative effects. So, therefore, what is the best approach to adopt in such a scenario?

In the first part of this paper we attempt to underline the epidemiological fundamentals of SARS-CoV-2 before proposing a general model to be applied to the Moroccan case that, whilst highlighting the confinement policy measure adopted by Morocco, temporally and dynamically outlines the spread of COVID-19 through multiple simulations.

In the second part, after the first part has covered the hallmarks of the coronavirus in terms of the spread of the COVID-19 disease, the paper tackles the additional contribution of technology, alongside other measures being used (diagnosis, confinement etc), to curb the pandemic.

Several approaches , notably based on Bluetooth and GPS geolocation, are emphasised, e.g. contact tracing or proximity tracing with the aim of protecting the population on a voluntary basis, whilst guaranteeing relative or complete anonymity. This naturally leads us to the third part of the paper where we deal with social acceptability, the ratchet effect, and ethics as the underlying conditions for the use of personal data.

In short, the structured nature of this article offers original thinking on the capability of coping with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic under a multi-disciplinary prism, avoiding the usual segmented thinking model, where only one component is processed at a time, ignoring the links between different levels and perceptions, thereby reducing the chances of solving any given problem in its entirety, regardless of its complexity.

The Anti-Dumping Agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) determines when governments can or cannot respond to dumping. Indeed, the latter happens when a company exports a product at a price lower than the price it charges to its own home market. While this tool has been widely used by developed and developing countries, the literature on anti-dumping is rather scarce. Thus, this paper examines the impact of the anti-dumping measures initiated by the Government of Egypt on imports during the period 2001-2015. Our contribution is twofold. First, the paper distinguishes between the effect of anti-dumping measures on the value, the volume and the price of imports. Second, it differentiates between the investigation, destruction and diversion effects of anti-dumping measures. Our main findings show that, once the investigation is approved, whilst prices increase and quantities decrease, the latter is stronger than the former. Moreover, once the investigation is initiated, there is an investigation effect. This effect means that imports are likely to decrease during the investigation review period before the final decision of the WTO is announced. Second, anti-dumping measures have a significant destruction effect. This refers to imports coming from countries included in the investigation decreasing once the latter is approved. This decrease is even higher in the year following the anti-dumping duty being imposed. Finally, and as a consequence of the anti-dumping measure, a diversion effect is observed. This can be explained by the fact that the origin of imports will shift from countries targeted by the measure to those that are non-targeted.

Social protection systems reduce poverty and provide a safety net for the vulnerable. However, social protection is not a reality for a large majority of the world’s population. In 2016, 55 per cent – as many as 4 billion people – were not covered by any social protection cash benefits (UN, Economic and Social Council, 2019). In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, large groups of the population remain excluded. Older people, women, those with disabilities and chronic diseases are the most vulnerable people and, in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, their situation has exacerbated.

The Arab countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa nearly all have traditionally defined social security benefit programmes.  They cover a relatively low proportion of the working population. Some of the countries face social issues of exclusion and special treatment of powerful elites. Besides examining social security pension programmes, the paper takes a broader look at the status of older people in Arab countries, by developing and analysing an index of the well-being of older people.