September 9, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 11, 1424

BEIRUT, Sept 8: The world’s weakest governance practices are hampering economic growth and development in the Middle East and North Africa, the World Bank said on Monday.

Lack of transparency in policy-making, weak accountability of public officials, and unequal access to public sector jobs and services has resulted in tangled bureaucracies that discourage investment and harm job creation in a region with burgeoning population growth, the bank said.

The bank said per capita economic growth in the region had averaged 0.9 per cent since 1980 — less than that of sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity has been falling for three decades, while increases in income are becoming harder to sustain and declines slower to reverse, it said.—Reuters