Mervat Tallawy, the UN's top official in the West Asia region, talks to Hedayat Abdel-Nabi of the challenges facing the region Mervat Tallawy's long and distinguished career in Egyptian diplomacy led to her appointment in 1987 as head of the Egyptian Mission in Austria and later Japan. The first Egyptian woman career diplomat to achieve this distinction, Tallawy also held key posts in Egypt as minister of insurance and social affairs and was the first secretary-general of the National Council for Women. Tallawy is now under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA, comprising Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen). What are the main challenges facing the ESCWA region in 2005 and up to 2015, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are supposed to be achieved? Instability in the region has become endemic. It is manifested in the ongoing conflict and violence in Palestine and Iraq. This instability has led to enormous negative implications for socioeconomic development. It has resulted in low investment rates, limited economic growth and constrained access to new technologies, increasing unemployment and low productivity. This led to negative growth all through the last two decades. Achieving most of the MDGs by the year 2015 is, therefore, extremely doubtful if this situation continues, especially with regards to poverty and gender equality. The quality of education in several Arab countries -- Iraq, Palestine and Yemen -- is also not improving according to studies carried out by ESCWA, reporting on MDGs. In many cases educational systems do not appear to be relevant to labour market needs. Do you foresee a Palestinian state in 2005, and what is your assessment of the main challenges facing the new leadership? We naturally hope to see the implementation of the two- state solution declared on several occasions as the basis for resolving this most damaging conflict in the Middle East. However, given current developments, it may be too optimistic to envisage full implementation of this solution in 2005. Positive signs are looming on the horizon. Greater unity among Palestinian factions is evident. However, positive developments are often undermined by ongoing settlement building and the use of excessive force by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Palestinian leadership certainly has a tough task ahead. In order to achieve significant results, it would need to be armed with greater support from the international community, particularly its sister Arab countries. It would also need to resort to further measures that ensure accountability and transparency. The deteriorating socio-economic situation in the occupied territories will be a major challenge facing the new leadership. Damage to the ecology is another setback that will be hard to remedy. For example, one million olive trees some hundreds of years old were destroyed or uprooted during the last four years! Democracy has become a top priority item on Arab agendas. What are your view on the model the Arab world should pursue in democratisation? It is true that reform and democracy are a priority for most national agendas, but it is not realistic to single out a "one model, fit-all", since the situation in each of the states is different. As a general rule, reform and democracy are essential for engendering an environment that is conducive to socio-economic development. For example, the ensuring of human rights -- including women's rights -- will be very difficult to achieve in a non-democratic environment. Reform and democracy are essential to ensure transparency and therefore for fighting illegal action and corruption. In this context, certain recent developments initiated by several countries in the region are encouraging. However, much more is needed if significant and enduring change is to be realised. What impact would the failure to achieve democracy have on development in the region? The debate on national development models, including systems of governance, will certainly impact paths ultimately taken by Arab countries in implementing their own development agendas. Finding the right way to implement the right model is crucial. Here, I would like to point out that many development theories have proved to be wrong, even when backed with the best intentions. In essence, bad planning and poor management have affected development most negatively. What we have to remember is that Arab countries will need to tackle external threats and challenges as they attempt to address their heavy national agendas. This is in addition to laying firm foundations for democracy and the rule of law. This is a time when the success or failure of nations is measured by standards of living and performance in the global marketplace and we need to constantly remember that competition in the international arena is knowledge- based. The technological capacity to transform knowledge into marketable products is at the root of competitiveness. But, while we quite rightly emphasize challenges that face Arab countries, we ought to mention that there is a need to perfect measurement and monitoring tools that result in political and moral pressure for reform in all nations, not only in Arab countries. Democracy and human development have proved to be closely related. What is your vision for the period 2005-2015 regarding this important issue? The relationship between democracy and human development is very well established. This link will have to be reflected in policy and practice. To start with, we shall have to reform educational programmes in order to ensure a proper upbringing of the new generation, instilling and emphasising new values, encouraging participatory attitudes and building capacity for engagement in political debate. Active involvement in social, economic and environmental aspects of development must become the main goals of educational reform. Additionally, the role of NGOs and civil society organisations at large should be strengthened. More partnerships are needed between NGOs, governments and the private sector. With this in mind, ESCWA has established a Consultative Committee of NGOs from Arab countries to discuss problems facing civil society institutions in the Arab world. How would you define the different challenges facing each of the Arab world's sub-regions, that is the Gulf states, the Levant, the Nile Valley and the Maghreb countries? Political differences between some member countries are among challenges confronting all sub-regions. Differences in the level of socio-economic development are at the root of other important sets of challenges. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are almost entirely oil-producing while, by and large, the rest of the Arab countries are not oil producers. Naturally, this impacts paths taken in national development as well as efforts towards regional cooperation. In general, inadequate government policies in many sectors, particularly with regard to knowledge creation and diffusion mechanisms, impede human development in the Arab region as a whole. Taking each sub-region separately, we may see that challenges in the GCC sub-region include the need to diversify national economies, and high unemployment among nationals coexisting with a sizeable proportion of foreign manpower. There are a few border problems as well, but these are being gradually resolved. As far as natural resources are concerned, water scarcity looms very high. Other important factors in socio-economic development in this region relate to the size of some of the GCC countries and their national populations. Challenges of the Levant or the Mashrek relate to the high rate of population growth, particularly in the younger age groups. Unemployment, lack of a permanent and just solution to the Palestinian problem, and continuing unrest in Iraq threaten to spill over into other parts of the region. Problems in Palestine and Iraq have direct implications on all countries of the Mashrek. For example, the implementation of many agreements that were concluded between states of this sub-region was constrained because of such unresolved problems. In the Nile Valley, strong relations have existed between Egypt and Sudan since time immemorial. However, unrest in Southern Sudan and Darfur has obstructed the implementation of joint development projects. In the Maghreb, unresolved problems of Western Sahara as well as internal ethnic differences appear to be among the main causes of upheavals from time to time. These are only some of the main challenges of the sub-regions. Do you foresee an Arab economic union? If yes, when? Regional unions are a principal requirement in confronting challenges of the global, knowledge-based economy. Since the establishment of WTO in 1995, more than 100 unions have registered. The Arab region is similar to other regional groupings in the Far East, the Pacific and Latin America. Sooner or later the Arab world will have to move towards more extensive cooperation. As to when this might happen, it is very difficult to predict. Eventually, however, there will be one passport and one currency! If this sounds too optimistic, let us remember that some of the regional groupings that have reached greater maturity, particularly in the economic field, such as GCC, are in the process of unifying their currencies. The state of their customs union is more advanced than what might be implied by "free zone" approaches. Could you elaborate a little on mega projects in the ESCWA region? Here I would like to direct attention to three international agreements fostered by ESCWA. The first relates to executing a road network that connects the Arab Mashrek along 36,000 kilometres with 10 North-South axes and 14 East-West axes. The second agreement is to complete railway linkages. The third relates to maritime transport. When implemented, these agreements will facilitate social movement, investment flows and goods' transportation. This will forge cooperation and fuller integration among the countries of the region. ESCWA is also active in two other areas. In the first, we are promoting the formulation of national social policies throughout the region. In preparing these policy agreements we were guided by examples of successes in Canada, Malaysia, South Korea, Tunisia and Norway. It was a pleasant surprise to see that in Tunisia 70 per cent of people own their houses and 80 per cent of the population constitute the middle class. This is a model worth learning from. In the second, we are implementing a regional initiative aimed at harnessing technology for employment creation and poverty reduction. We have high hopes that our efforts in this direction will bear fruit quite soon. Another success story that has remained remarkably robust for some time is self-sufficiency in food production. A case in point is Syria. What is ESCWA's current input in Iraq, with all the uncertainties and troubles there? ESCWA established a task force in 2003, before the war, to monitor the situation in Iraq. The minister of planning, His Excellency Mr Mahdy El-Hafez, acted as liaison for this task force in order to help define the priorities and needs of Iraq during this critical period. As a result of this and through negotiations with the Iraqi representative in ESCWA, a number of training courses in the area of capacity building were developed. This also helped in collecting missing data and statistics in the period of unrest. There are also a number of projects in the pipeline awaiting approval of funding from UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq). These include the smart community project that helps bring the benefits of modern technologies to rural areas in Iraq. The project aims at rehabilitating existing infrastructures and at creating bases for improved skill formation and improved competitiveness and outreach. Could you elaborate on the role of ESCWA in the period 2005-2015? ESCWA, like other agencies of the UN system, considers the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a guide for its programme, whether this biennium or the next biennia, until 2015. Monitoring the performance of member states to reach these goals is integrated in all our work for the purpose of evaluating and identifying constraints and ways to solve them. An important constraint here is the scarcity of timely statistics and indicators in many countries. It is a must that such counties commit themselves to collect and improve statistical data without which it is difficult to give a clear picture of progress on MDGs and to effectively guide development policies. In general, however, we see important, though uneven, progress being made in the region towards attaining the MDGs. Our thematic focus and priorities are sustainable development, including issues of water, technology (including information technology), globalisation and social policies. We are also keen to follow up on the implementation of our mega projects mentioned earlier in the infrastructure field; namely, roads, railways and maritime transport for the purpose of boosting regional economic and social integration. We also exert a special effort to overcome the geographical borders of our member states by inviting the rest of the Arab countries to our meetings. This proves to be very helpful particularly when trying to take a unified position, such as in the case of the Sustainable Development Declaration in Johannesburg in 2002. This was also manifested in the unified Arab position taken vis-à-vis the WTO before conferences in Doha and Cancun, as well as before the Monterrey Conference on Finance for Development. How do you see the development in the role of women in Arab States? In the Arab region there has been a large number of legislative changes in favour of women. In Egypt, women have acquired the right to divorce ( khol' ), the right to give their nationality to their children, and the right to travel abroad without the need to provide written permission from their husbands. In Kuwait, women can now engage in aspects of political life, and in Morocco a quota of 30 seats in parliament has been assigned to women candidates. There is also an established quota for women in the Jordanian parliament. One fourth of all judges in Lebanon are now women. There are also women judges in a number of countries of the region, including Sudan and Yemen. A Jordanian woman judge became member of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Joining other countries of the region, the Saudi government has signed the CEDAW (Convention for the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women) agreement. It has also endorsed and supported the appointment of the first Saudi woman to hold a high-level post at the United Nations (in the UN Population Fund). In general, there has been marked progress at all socio- economic fronts with respect to women's empowerment. However, the main challenge Arab women face is deeply seated in the traditions of a patriarchal society and the absence of an active role by women themselves to change such traditions. Is ESCWA working on the "Arab image", correcting misconceptions nurtured since 11 September 2001? ESCWA as a mini-United Nations for the Arab Mashrek should be better utilised by all stakeholders for increasing joint operations, enhancing efforts towards socioeconomic integration among these countries and the larger Arab region, as well as serving as a bridge between Western civilisation and that of the Arab countries. We are also working on forging stronger partnerships between all three agents of development in the region -- governments, civil society institutions and the private sector. Regarding misconceptions nurtured in the West because of terrorist activities, it is also not conceivable that millions of Arab people are held accountable for such activities that are condemned by and fought in every Arab country. Efforts made by ESCWA in this respect are directed at some of the root causes of terrorism, which are poverty and inequality. Other reasons are embedded in the need to justly resolve conflicts in the region, primarily in Palestine and Iraq. Clearly, the solution of these problems and many others does not lie in the hands of Arab countries alone. In short, working on the "Arab image" in the West is an onerous task that will need time before it can bear fruit.
