Given the recent and ongoing political turmoil in Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, with a serious possibility of further contagion to neighbouring countries and perhaps right across the “arc of instability,” the so-called Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is an interesting group of countries to focus our attention on. According to World Bank data, it is made up of 21 countries and is home to around 400 million inhabitants, with a per capita income of more than PPP $9,000 (2009 data). More importantly, it is economically diverse, with oil-rich countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and resource-scarce countries such as Egypt and Yemen, thus resulting in wide variations in per capita incomes across the region. Averages for the region need to be contextualized. In Egypt, for example, it is estimated that anywhere between 20-30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line; unemployment is close to 10 percent and more than 80 percent of the unemployed are in the 15-29 age group.