Africa UN Knowledge Hub for COVID-19

This paper analyzes corporate vulnerabilities in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP hereafter) in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic shock. Using a sample of nearly 700 firms from eleven countries in MENAP, we assess the non-financial corporate (NFC) sector’s liquidity and solvency risk and viability over the medium term under different stress test scenarios. Our findings suggest that the health crisis has exacerbated vulnerabilities in the corporate sector, though the effects are heterogenous across the region.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Trade and Development: Transitioning to a New Normal is a special 2020 publication prepared by an extended interdivisional UNCTAD team led by Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General, Isabelle Durant, Deputy Secretary-General, and Daniel Owoko, Chief of Staff of the Ofce of the Secretary-General. Pamela Coke-Hamilton, former Director of the Division on International Trade and Commodities, provided extensive contributions towards the preparation of the publication.

Two years might not be enough to have a full understanding of all that took place due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic since 2020, especially as the pandemic is still not over. But it is nonetheless imperative that institutions such as ours try to find instances, such as this, to pause and reflect on all that has happened recently – both the deep recession of 2020, and the fragile and uneven rebound the world witnessed last year – to derive valuable lessons for the future.