- ISBN-10: 1464802947
- ISBN-13: 9781464802942
- Author:
- Language: English
The challenge for the Iraqi authorities in the years ahead will be to turn oil revenues into sustained welfare improvements. Macroeconomic stability alone is not enough to address social and economic development issues and to avoid a resource curse. Iraqâs oil wealth alone cannot generate sustainably high living standards for the majority of its population. Economic diversification is an imperativeâboth to create jobs and to promote income-generating opportunities for the Iraqi population. The key challenges for the authorities therefore are (i) to remove constraints to non-hydrocarbon economic activities; (ii) to ensure the efficient use of oil revenue; and (iii) to restrain the growth of current spending (in particular wage bill and subsidies) to free up resources for public investment, while maintaining essential safety nets and social support for the poor and disadvantaged. Public investment management is a crosscutting capability that is needed to meet Iraqâs development objectives.
The government has the opportunity to take concrete steps now. The PER proposes approaches and actions to better use Iraqâs oil revenues by shifting to a save and invest via curbing inefficient spending and redirecting resources to public investment and basic services. As economic growth prospects are favorable in the medium-term, the Iraqi government has the opportunity to lay the foundations of a broadly diversified economy, with a reasonable footprint that provides decent public services and security while facilitating adequate economic freedom. Senior policy makers at the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Planning and line ministries are the primary audience of this work.