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This paper investigates the impact of remittances on economic growth for the ten MENA countries for the MENA region over a period from 1980 to 2021. Our contribution consists in decomposing the effect of remittances on economic growth into a direct effect and an indirect effect which are transmitted through the domestic investment channel and human capital channel. To do so, our econometric approach is based on dynamic panel data (GMM diff and GMM sys) in order to overcome endogeneity and inverse causality bias. Two main results can be identified: First, the results show that remittances negatively affect economic growth. Second, we show that the interaction terms between remittances and human capital ($\mathrm{\text{Rem}}\ast \mathrm{\text{enrol}}$) and remittances and domestic investment ($\mathrm{\text{Rem}}\ast \mathrm{\text{inv}}$) are positive and statistically significant in the dynamic panel approach. These results show that the effectiveness of migrant remittances in terms of economic growth depends heavily on improving human capital and orienting remittances to the most productive investments for MENA countries. The policy implications of our study are that governments of the most remittance-receiving countries in the MENA region must give great importance to improving domestic investment and the level of human capital in order to enhance remittances and promoting economic growth.

In this paper we propose a Regional Internet Exchange (RIX) scheme for MENA countries intra-regional traffic, compared with the existing situation for Internet service provision. The RIX architecture is proposed, implemented, and evaluated using simulation. Simultaneous comparative performance evaluation of Internet service provision for the existing and the proposed scenarios are presented. It is focused to measure utilization, message delays, access time and client perceived latencies performance metrics. The study shows that the proposed scheme results in less international bandwidth utilization and it reduces significantly the access time and most importantly it is inherently cost-effective.

This chapter aims to enhance knowledge of green finance in the existing literature and to review the sustainable development activities in the Middle East and North African countries. The study has also identified the challenges of providing green finance activities around the MENA region and offers suggestions to overcome the hindrances with the help of literary evidence. Research studies revealed that green finance and its related elements are at the forefront of discussion around the world. The reason behind these extreme changes in green nature is due to political, economic, social, and environmental fluctuations, which are affected by a fiscal crisis. Researchers have used the latest methodology of PRISM 2020, which is an advanced version of PRISMA 2009, for conducting a systematic literature review by considering 10 years of literature studies between 2013 and 2022 from the Scopus Search Engine to meet the research objectives of the study. This study would help future research activities on green finance to learn from the initiatives of MENA nations to understand the practical difficulties and opportunities available in society. It has remarkable implications for academic researchers, officials making policies, and entities providing various services to practitioners in the field of green nature as it is unique in understanding the growth and development of green finance activities and its sustainable development around the MENA region. The study concluded that green finance initiatives are possible by focusing on implementing various carbon emission proposals as part of sustainable programs. Government and financial institutions must consider that green finance activities enhance sustainable financing.

The financial crisis, the accumulation of sovereign debt, shocks to commodity prices, and pandemics are just a few of the recent economic crises that have affected the world and had a major effect on economic activities. In this context, the financial sector must fully contribute to encouraging economic growth in order to achieve equitable economic growth and reduce poverty. To that end, access to affordable and secure financial services is crucial. The main goal of financial inclusion, which allows people to take advantage of saving and investing opportunities, is to provide basic financial services to society’s poor and excluded groups. This study aims to identify the factors that promote financial inclusion in the MENA region. It specifically examines the impact of GDP per capita, the money supply as a percentage of GDP, the number of internet users as a percentage of the population, and consumer price inflation. The International Monetary Fund and the Global Development Indicators provided the secondary data for the study, which covers the period 2004–2020. The dynamic panel was conducted using Stata 17 software to obtain the coefficients of such variables that affect the levels of financial inclusion in six MENA countries. The results reveal that income level, measured by GDP per capita, financial sector development, measured by the money supply, and the number of internet users all have positive effects on financial inclusion in the MENA region, while consumer price inflation has no impact. The Financial Inclusion Index (FII), according to Sarma’s (2008) approach, has not been employed in any relevant studies, despite the theoretical and empirical literature offering a range of perspectives on which factor can determine financial inclusion. This study uses this index to measure financial inclusion and then applies dynamic panel estimation to identify the factors that promote financial inclusion in MENA countries. Consequently, this chapter strives to enrich the literature by comprehending the determinants of financial inclusion in the MENA region, covering the period 2004–2020.