Middle East and North Africa
The Middle East and North Africa region comprises 12 countries that had enough data for coverage in the Index. Out of these, only three—Israel (29), the United Arab Emirates (54) and Qatar (56)—make it into the upper half of ranked countries in the Human Capital Index. It is also one of the most disparate regions in the Index, spanning three income group levels and ranging from age group averages in line with other high-income economies in Europe and elsewhere to those more in line with the worst-performing countries in the Sub-Saharan African region. Kuwait (93) and Saudi Arabia (85), whose GDP per capita is at least fivefold higher, perform at a comparable level to Morocco (95) and Egypt (84), respectively, highlighting that economic performance alone is an inadequate measure of countries’ ability to successfully leverage their human capital endowment. While the region’s overall average score of 60.50 masks significant differences in countries’ human capital performance, it also points to opportunities to learn from each other across the region.
Several critical issues plague the under 15 age groups in certain countries in the Middle East and North Africa