Reader’s Guide
Regional Integration in the Union for the Mediterranean: Progress Report monitors integration in the Euro-Mediterranean region, with the aim to provide evidence-based policy recommendations. The Progress Report features the analysis of key quantitative and qualitative indicators of integration in five areas, notably: trade, finance, infrastructure, movement of people, and research and higher education. The selection of indicators for each integration area built on the literature on economic integration and brainstorming on the pertinence of given measures for monitoring integration in the Union for the Mediterranean. Also, a fresh perspective was taken when necessary to ensure the choice of meaningful indicators in the context of the UfM. The final selection of indicators reflects considerations about geographical coverage and data quality, relevance and availability, and relative ease of interpretation of the results.
The five chapters of the Progress Report analyse respectively one of the five integration areas in the scope of the monitoring exercise. A table in each chapter introduces the key monitoring indicators that are used for the analysis of the progress of integration in the concerned area, i.e. trade, finance, infrastructure, movement of people, and research and higher education.
Future editions of the Progress Report will possibly monitor additional dimensions of integration in the Union for the Mediterranean, and will deepen the analysis of economic integration as related to inclusive growth, gender equality and environmental sustainability.
Unless otherwise noted, the report uses data from the OECD and other international data agencies with the mandate, resources, and expertise to collect national data on specific indicators. The main databases are listed in the tables presenting the key monitoring indicators. When international databases do not cover one or more UfM countries but data exist in national databases, these are used as a complement to expand the country coverage, provided that the metadata indicate sufficient consistency with the reference international database.