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The war in Gaza has prevented 39,000 students there from sitting the school-leaving public exam held on Saturday, the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education said.
The ministry, based in the occupied West Bank, said 50,097 high school students were taking the exam, know as Tawjihi, including 1,320 who were displaced from Gaza.
Israel's military offensive in Gaza, now in its ninth month, has severely affected education in the Palestinian enclave.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million population have been forced to flee their homes, while much of its infrastructure, including utilities, hospitals and schools, has been destroyed, and hunger has become widespread because Israeli of controls on the entry of goods.
The UN says distribution of aid that enters the territory is increasingly difficult amid continued fighting and rising levels of lawlessness.
More than 625,000 students are missing out on education or access to a safe learning environment because of school closures and attacks on education since the war began on October 7, according to the Global Education Cluster, a forum led by the UN children's agency Unicef and the NGO Save the Children.
It said a satellite-based assessment conducted in April showed that more than 85 per cent of schools in Gaza have suffered some level of damage.
In addition, schools are now being used as shelters for displaced people.
Of the 307 government school buildings, 286 have been damaged, including dozens that were destroyed, according to Sadiq Khadour, spokesman for the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
The destruction extends beyond buildings to include vital communication and electrical networks, making the prospect of shifting to online education unfeasible in the near future, Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted Mr Khadour as saying.
At least 8,000 school-age children and 350 teachers have been killed in Gaza, and more than 12,500 students have been injured, according to the ministry.
It is planning a special exam session for high school students once conditions in Gaza permit and the minimum required curriculum can be taught, Wafa reported.
The ministry will also conduct an assessment of the damage to educational institutions and identify locations for temporary classrooms.
Preliminary estimates suggest that Gaza needs at least 4,500 additional classrooms, operating in double shifts to accommodate all students.
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HIV on the rise in the region
A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.
New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.
Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.
Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.
Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Red cards Cahill, Fabregas (Chelsea)
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
