Who Cares About Environmental Quality in the MENA Region

This paper provides new evidence on the preference for environmental quality among youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Our paper aims to provide insights into the relationship between youth outlooks and characteristics and environmental awareness. We use a unique and nationally representative micro-level dataset extracted from the SAHWA Youth Survey (Barcelona Centre for International Studies (CIDOB), Barcelona, 2016) conducted in five major MENA countries: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. The empirical investigation utilizes the ordered probit model to accommodate the ordinal nature of the dependent variable that measures environmental awareness. Our findings indicate that the preference for a better environmental quality increases with individual income, by being female, and with the lack of confidence in government. Moreover, identity factors such as gender equality, the unimportance of traditions and perceiving oneself as a national citizen have a positive effect on environmental awareness. These findings signal a number of potential policy implications. First, they point to the importance of economic growth and modernization in the region as a way of increasing environmental awareness in the future. Second, they reveal a genuine demand for the provision of public goods in the presence of weak governmental actions with respect to environmental quality. Third, the fact that females demand more environmental quality than males allows us to forecast a general increase in such awareness as females across the region participate more in the economy, society and politics leading to what we can call ‘female environmental stewardship’.