Assessing the performance of the public sector in North African and Middle East countries

Interest in public sector performance has grown considerably. Because it is connected to public budgets and their rational use, the measurement of public sector performance is an important consideration. Our paper taps into an interest in the North African and Middle East, where recent protests against totalitarian political regimes, a continuous economic decline and a high unemployment rate - especially among the youth - suggest the failure of their public sector. This paper creates a new ranking of MENA countries according to their opportunity and Musgravian indicators. The results point to the existence of four main categories of countries classified by the availability of their natural resources. The paper shows also the recommendation to increasing the public sector efficiency.