DEVELOPMENT: Mixed Marks for Arab World

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 2 2002 (IPS) - A new study on human development in the Arab world released Tuesday highlights considerable progress in some areas, counterbalanced by major shortcomings such as weak personal and institutional freedoms, weak empowerment of women, and a flimsy knowledge base.

The Arab Human Development Report 2002 says the advances made by the region are illustrated by a 15-year rise in life expectancy over the past three decades, and a two-thirds reduction in child mortality.

Outstanding progress has also been made in the fight against poverty. In the countries studied by the report released Tuesday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), there is less abject poverty – defined as incomes of less than a dollar a day – in the Arab world than in any other developing region.

In addition, the disparity between the rich and the poor is not as marked in Arab nations as in other developing regions.

The lower rates of dire poverty are a result of social policies, the solidarity that tends to characterise Arab cultures, and a strong tradition of helping the poor, say the authors.

The study, carried out by a team of independent Arab experts, covers the 22 members of the League of Arab States – Algeria, Bahrain, Comoro, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen – which have a combined population of 280 million people.

In 1990, the UNDP introduced the Human Development Index (HDI), which “challenges the idea” that growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is equivalent to development. The HDI makes people the main focus of its global assessment.

The new study’s main conclusion is that Arab countries made considerable headway against poverty and inequality in the 20th century, and can be expected to continue to do so in the 21st century.

But the report also points to “warning signals.” For instance, the region’s growth of per capita income has been the lowest in the world in the past 20 years, with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa.

At the current annual rate of 0.5 percent growth of per capita income, it will take 140 years for citizens of Arab countries to double their incomes. In other regions, that objective will be achieved in just 10 years, the study observes.

Nevertheless, Arab countries have a solid economic base for improving human development, said Jean Fabre, UNDP spokesperson in Geneva. In fact, many of them have grown richer, although development has not kept up, which means “the region is richer than it is developed,” according to the report.

The most prosperous Arab states owe their wealth to oil, although the region’s HDI scores suggest that “this is a mixed blessing,” says the report.

It adds that “oil revenues are not always reinvested productively in the country, let alone in the region. And when such revenues are used in physical capital formation they contribute little to growth, as efficiency still suffers.”

Oil wealth, which is exclusive to only some Arab countries, “also distorts the world’s perception of Arab progress,” noted Fabre.

Indeed, the combined GDP of the 22 Arab nations considered by the report amounted to 531 billion dollars in 1999, even less than that of a single medium-sized European economy like Spain, whose GDP stood at 595 billion.

The report – which “was written by Arabs for Arabs,” according to Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States – also notes that “Arab women have made considerable progress over the decades.

“The Arab region shows the fastest improvement in female education of any region, with female literacy expanding threefold since 1970, and primary and secondary enrolment doubling.”

However, little progress has been made when it comes to the participation of women in economic and political life. The Arab countries rank towards the bottom of the HDI Gender Empowerment Measure, scoring lower than any region other than sub-Saharan Africa.

And in some categories, like women’s participation in the workforce or their representation in parliament – which amounts to just 3.5 percent – the Arab region has the lowest HDI values in the world.

In addition, over half of all Arab women are illiterate, while the maternal mortality rate of the Arab world is double that of Latin America and the Caribbean, and four times that of east Asia.

The report stresses that access by women to information and communication technologies is important to change that situation. It also calls for “reversing the feminisation of unemployment, removing gender bias in labour markets…and addressing gender gaps in the quality and relevance of education and skill-training programmes.”

In addition, the authors say priority should be given by micro- finance services to women entrepreneurs.

The report also urges Arab countries to adhere to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and to bolster women’s participation in political activity.

On the political front, in comparison with other regions, Arabs suffer a “freedom deficit, so that even when civil rights are enshrined in constitutions and laws, they are often ignored in practice,” the authors state.

The level of popular political participation is low in Arab countries, as shown by the absence of truly representative democracies and by the restrictions on liberties, they add.

In fact, the Arab region’s HDI scores on “freedom”, “voice” and “accountability” are even lower than those of sub-Saharan Africa.

“Action to improve governance in Arab countries would centre on reforming institutions and activating the voice of the people,” says the report, which also calls for more rapid growth, based on a sound knowledge base.

The economies of the Arab world must grow at an annual rate of five percent if they aim to reduce unemployment and provide jobs for those who are joining the labour market. However, the region’s GDP is only growing at a rate of 3.3 percent, and per capita income at 0.5 percent.