The Mediterranean Development Forum is a partnership devoted to disseminating knowledge, building skills and fostering networks among the development community in the Middle East and North Africa. Its primary purpose is to bring together members of that community, setting in motion an exchange of knowledge and skills among decisionmakers from the public, private, non-profit, think tank and academic sectors from the developing countries in the region. The goal of this exchange is to help decisionmakers strengthen the region’s capacity for poverty reduction and sustainable development.

In addition to WBI, partner institutions include the Arab Economists Association; the Arab Planning Institute; the Economic Research Forum for Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey; the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies; the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies; the Middle East and North Africa Economic Summit; the Royal Scientific Society; the Syrian Consulting Bureau of Development and Investment; and the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation.

The MDF conference was organized around thirteen core workshops, which focused on a single major topic of regional interest, ranging from water management to education, to small enterprise management and financing, to private infrastructure, to economic management and to trade and investment promotion. These topics were connected by two cross-cutting themes: technology and partnerships. In addition, there were four master lectures of top development practicitioners and researchers and several open sessions on a broad range of topics, which were designed to expose participants to other development issues being explored at the conference. In all cases, the conference reviewed world and regional "best practices" — that is, what experience shows about which policies work and under what conditions — in specific sectors, and drew heavily from the regional partners’ keen knowledge of local conditions, challenges and opportunities.

This volume, which is more a window into the topics discussed than a comprehensive account of the proceedings, evolved mostly from recordings of the conference’s workshops and open sessions, many of which were translated from Arabic and French into English. For those sessions that were not recorded, or for which translations were not possible due to time constraints, participants were asked to summarize their presentations for inclusion in this volume. The remaining presentations are in the form of papers provided directly by the participants.

WBI’s deep thanks are extended to all the authors for their contribution to this volume, and for their invaluable help in reviewing various drafts despite the challenges of time. Anjum Akhtar assisted in the developmental stages of the volume, Joan Casey edited the discussions on fiscal decentralization, Sophie Claudet edited the section on education reform, and Hana Salah translated some of the Arabic and French workshops’ discussions. Special thanks to Boris Pleskovic and Joseph Stiglitz for giving permission to include Mr. Stiglitz’s paper, "An Agenda for Development for the Twenty-First Century," published in The Annual Bank Conference on Economic Developments 1997.

In the spirit of Marrakech, WBI offers this volume as a knowledge "souk" (or marketplace) through which to browse and select specific development knowledge resources, with the hope that the discussions presented here will provide a constructive contribution to the ongoing debate on the development challenges and opportunities facing the countries in the Middle East and North Africa.