During the ERF 24th Annual Conference, Mohamed Ali Mourani (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University) participated as discussant in a parallel session on inequality and early child development in Turkey and in Algeria. In the video below, he presents the main findings of the two papers presented in the session.
The first paper - Utilization of Healthcare Services by Young Children: The Aftermath of the Turkish Health Transformation Program - evaluated the impact of the public policy initiated in 2003 to see if this policy was successful in de-linking the outcome in terms of health with income of the parents. The second paper- Inequality of Opportunity in Early Childhood Development in Algeria Over Time - the second paper was comparing many indicators between 2006 and 2012 in Algeria so
According to Marouani, both papers find that family income, mother's education, regional aspects have still an impact on early childhood development. However, in both countries, and in Turkey in particular, the policy implemented seemed to have an impact in improving the different outcomes in terms of early child development.
There are still some aspect to study more and to understand, such as whether the poorest benefited more or not; for Prof. Marouani, these are the aspect of the papers that could be still improved and where the authors could focus their attention in the future.
Finally, Prof. Marouani indicates that the discussion after the presentations was very lively and interesting, with different participants working on the same issue that contribute their perspectives. This provided an excellent opportunity to compare notes, understand similarities and differences between the different countries and learn what kind of policies could be applied directly from these studies.
The Economic Research Forum’s 24th Annual Conference is held in Cairo, Egypt, on 8-10 July, 2018. The main theme of the plenary sessions is “The New Normal in the Global Economy: Challenges and Prospects for MENA”. The conference aims to draw on the lessons learned from the restructuring of the economic order across the region, particularly in light of the wide-ranging consequences of the decline in oil prices. With social turbulence and conflict persist in several MENA countries, the main goal is adequately reconciling short-term social and economic concerns with long-term growth and reform efforts. Visit the conference website to find out more about the event and access papers, videos and blogs.
