"Economic Planning for Arab Cities Resilience: A Comprehensive Approach"

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the necessity for global and regional cities to develop urban economic resilience to mitigate the impacts of various crises. Economic resilience is vital for facilitating economic recovery, resuming economic activities, and enhancing the capacity of all workers, including those in informal employment, to retain their jobs. Given the Arab region's significant demographic, political, social, and economic diversity, and its status as one of the most urbanized areas globally, the study emphasizes the importance of addressing development challenges, including labor market issues, business sector dynamics, financial markets, investment, poverty, informal working conditions, and the status of female breadwinners. The pandemic's economic impact has led to substantial contractions, revealing the need for enhanced productivity and adaptability to rapid changes, such as digitalization. This research aims to provide a comprehensive approach to enhancing urban economic resilience in the Arab region, contributing to sustainable development and economic stability. Many challenges are facing the Arab region on the way to achieving economic resilience that needs economic resilience planning to overcome; some of them are inadequate financial services and weak legislation, unsustainable use of resources, weak digital transformation, unbalanced investment distribution, and private sector disinvolvement. A range of recommendations: strengthened to overcome the challenges, such as the sustainable planning and utilization of renewable energy, diverse financing options, fostering the digital transformation, more support for SMEs, achieving balanced investment distribution, more infrastructure modernization, private sector involvement, and increasing grants and subsidies for priority sectors like health, food industries, and scientific research.