Bahrain’s Finance Minister Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa has welcomed the initiation of the discussion on shared prosperity.

The minister said this as he attended meetings of the Development Committee and the International Monetary and Financial Committee, in Washington on the sidelines of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

In his statement to the Development Committee on behalf of Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Oman, Qatar, Syria, the UAE and Yemen, the minister said that globally shared prosperity implies a shared responsibility between the public and private sectors, advanced and emerging markets, as well as multilateral development banks and international financial institutions.

Further, such prosperity will not be attained without more jobs that are good for development, he added.

The jobs challenge is larger than unemployment rates and surface interventions.

With a global deficit of more than 600 million jobs in the next decade, the challenge is to ensure that jobs created are inclusive, private sector-led, and highly productive, he said.

The minister highlighted the unprecedented risks and challenges faced by many countries in the Middle East and North Africa region that can compromise regional and global stability.

Shaikh Ahmed said he believes that the definition of conflict and fragility should go beyond the traditional boundaries to include countries at risk of falling into conflicts, including countries in transition and those affected by the spillovers of regional or neighbouring conflicts.

He highlighted the absence of valid, reliable, and comprehensive data on poverty and shared prosperity. He also called on greater leadership and collaboration between the WBG, IMF, and the UN to start a 'data revolution' that involves investing in the global data infrastructure. - TradeArabia News Service