UNO report on <Arab human development>

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Under the microscope: Arab human development revisited

 

EXCERPTS from an article published in The Daily Star

 

During her term in office, former Jordanian Planning Minister Rima Khalaf

al-Hineidi intended to produce a report about human development in the kingdom

along the same lines as the annual report produced by the UNDP that covers all

developing nations.

.....

.... Hineidi did not forget her pet project when she moved from the Jordanian

government to the United Nations. Since her appointment as UNDP regional manager

in the Arab world, she has been working hard to bring it to fruition ­ only this

time the report was to cover not only Jordan but all 22 Arab countries.

The team she chose to help her produce the Arab Human Development Report 2002,

the first HDR for all the Arab states from the Maghreb to the Gulf, was 100

percent Arab (the reason for that being to avoid accusations of anti-Arab bias).

 

Nevertheless, the report had the impact of a bombshell when it finally came out.

 

While its contents came as no surprise to experts on Arab affairs, its

hard-hitting style and frank criticism certainly did. Arab societies, the report

said, are paralyzed because of a lack of basic freedoms, oppression of women,

and isolation from mainstream world thinking.

 

Oil wealth is unfortunately accompanied by social backwardness. No other region

in the world save Sub-Saharan Africa enjoys lower levels of personal income.

Productivity in the Arab world is in decline, scientific research virtually

nonexistent, and fully half of Arab womanhood is illiterate. In fact, the report

revealed that even a small country like Finland exports more than all Arab

countries combined, while medium-sized countries like Spain enjoy gross national

products higher than the entire Arab world put together.

 

The report only adopted a diplomatic tone when it wanted to implicitly criticize

extremist Islamist movements as being reasons behind the propagation of a

culture of backwardness that stifles democracy.

 

Alarmingly, the report found that only 330 books are translated in the entire

Arab world annually ­a mere fifth of the number of books translated in Greece.

In fact, the total number of books translated in the Arab world in the last

1,000 years ­ since the era of the Muslim caliph, Mamoun ­ is less than the

number translated in Spain in a year.

 

The report also stated that most Arab rulers remain in power for life, and have

taken to establishing dynasties that inherit power perpetually in a peculiar

arrangement referred to as hereditary republics. Arab peoples, meanwhile, are

impotent, unable to effect change or to influence events.

In short, the report on human development in the Arab world hung the Arabs’

dirty laundry for all to see; it contained a wealth of information that could be

used to tarnish the reputation of Arabs around the world.

Sadly, though, that information is all true.

 

But it does not seem that Arab leaders are going to do anything about the facts

the report revealed, save perhaps pressure UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to

sack Hineidi.

....

....At any rate, by comparing the performance of each individual country with the

rest of the world, and with its own performance in earlier years, the report for

2002 was a clarion call for nations to wake up from their slumbers and face the

real world.

 

.... Since the latest UNDP report concentrated on democracy and good governance,

the fact that the Jordanian Parliament has been dissolved and elections

postponed counted heavily against the country. It is to be hoped that the

authorities got the message contained in the report and will work to remedy the

situation as soon as possible.

 

Besides Jordan, here is the HDI ranking of Arab countries in HDR 2002: Bahrain

came 39th, Kuwait 45th, the UAE 46th, Qatar 51st, Libya 64th, Saudi Arabia 71st,

Lebanon 75th, Oman 78th, Tunisia 97th, Jordan 99th, Algeria 106th, Syria 108th,

Egypt 115th, Morocco 123rd, Sudan 139th, Yemen 144th, Djibouti 149th and

Mauritania at 152nd.

....

Fahed Fanek is one of Jordan’s leading economics and media consultants. He wrote

this commentary for The Daily Star

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/19_08_02_d.htm

 

 

 

 

 

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