The media hype that accompanied the publication of the first UN Arab Human Development Report has waned for some time now. The debate over its findings rages on, however, as Gihan Shahine reports One of the main objectives of the first UN- commissioned Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), launched at the Arab League in June, was to initiate a serious debate on development issues in the Arab world. Hailed as a report by and for Arabs, the document's message is now being picked up closer to home after it garnered much applause in the foreign media. Two seminars were held this week to delve deeper into the main issues the report raises; namely, alarming shortcomings in the areas of political freedom, gender equality and the dissemination of knowledge. The first seminar was held on Sunday at Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science where the Centre for the Study of Developing Countries (CSDC) gave attention to the economic aspects of development and to other shortcomings mentioned by the report. On Tuesday, Al-Ahram Regional Press Institute and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation co-organised another seminar on the same issues. Many experts praised the AHDR for its novelty in concept, regional focus and candour. They also applauded the report for being the first to tackle human development issues from a multi- dimensional perspective that went beyond a focus on traditional economic variables. Many economists, however, criticised the report for failing to give sufficient weight to such crucial economic issues like growth, unemployment and poverty. The report says that the incidence of poverty in the Arab world is much lower than in other developing regions, and that Arab countries do better on income indicators than on development ones when compared to other regions. "That gives a false impression -- the idea that poverty is not an issue in the Arab world is totally incorrect," said Sahar El-Taweel, assistant professor of statistics at Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science. "Poverty is a major issue in the Arab world. Even in rich oil countries, where income poverty may not exist, people are considered poor in terms of their capability. The report does not analyse poverty in the Arab world, although it makes a number of recommendations that, accordingly, appear out of context and do not relate to the current anti-poverty policies in any Arab country." One of the report's provocative findings, however, was that Arab countries' per capita income growth in the last decade was the lowest in the world -- excepting sub-Saharan Africa. If the annual growth rate of 0.5 per cent persists, the report warns, it would take the average citizen 140 years to double his income. Currently, one in five Arabs lives on less than two dollars a day. Open unemployment in Arab countries was estimated at no less than 12 million for 1995 -- around 15 per cent of the labour force. This is the highest figure in the world. Esmat Abdel-Kerim of the Arab League's Council for Arab Economic Unity insists the picture is not so bleak. Abdel-Kerim bases his argument on official figures provided by the league's Unified Arab Economic Report (UAER). "The report says the aggregate GDP of the Arab world [$531.2 billion] is less than that of Spain [$595.5 billion] -- an exaggeration, especially when compared with the $712 billion in the year 2000 mentioned in the UAER," Abdel- Kerim scoffed. "And, the average per capita income in the Arab region rose from $2,465 in 1995 to $2,465 in 2001." The AHDR, at any rate, concludes that the Arab world may be richer than it is developed because it is "hobbled by a different kind of poverty -- that of capability and opportunity". It views shortcomings in freedom, women's empowerment and knowledge as the main developmental constraints facing Arab countries. Experts concur that freedoms are stifled in the Arab world. According to the report, out of seven regions, the Arab world scored the lowest in terms of freedoms in the 1990s. The report measures various aspects of the political process, the state of civil liberties, political rights and media independence, coming up with findings that many analysts have said are accurate and which one observer called "bravely honest". "Although the transfer of power is via the ballot box the world over, this does not happen in the Arab region," explained Mustafa El-Sayed, professor of Political Science at Cairo University, and the author of one of the report's background papers on political participation in the region. "The vast majority of Arab monarchies are not constitutional: they are hereditary systems under which there is no distinction between the ruler's private safe and the state treasury." Political systems, however, vary among Arab countries, El-Sayed said. Countries, such as Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt have multi-party systems and margin of freedom of association, while some countries, like Iraq, for instance, are ruled by a single party. In a third group of countries, freedom of association is not recognised, most notably for either trade unions and political parties. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are cases in point. "Violation of human rights, however, is the rule in all Arab countries," El-Sayed maintained. A lack of democracy in the Arab world, he added, results primarily from the close ties between political power and wealth. "The prevailing political culture in Arab countries does not see a link between democracy and the improvement of the economy and social conditions," El-Sayed said. "In fact, rulers' understanding of democracy is limited to allowing a margin of freedom of speech." Many experts agree with the AHDR that Arab countries could do much better with respect to women's empowerment. When it comes to political and economic participation, Arab women lag behind their sisters in all other regions. One in two Arab women can neither read nor write, the report says. "We should bear in mind, however, that the report depended on some unreliable sources like the US Freedom House, which issues an annual report on the status of freedom in the world," said Dina El-Khawaga, instructor of management at Cairo University's Political Science Department. "Besides, the number of females working in fields like science and culture should also be included in the measurement of women's empowerment." Freedoms aside, many experts agree that high illiteracy rates in Arab countries are a cause for concern. A serious deterioration in the quality of education has also led to a decline in knowledge acquisition, analytical skills and creativity. This, in turn, goes a ways towards explaining why the region has a weak system of scientific research and development, and why access to information and communication technology (ICT) is so limited. The Arab world, the AHDR says, has the lowest ICT access in the world: only 0.6 per cent of the population uses the Internet, and personal computer penetration is 1.2 per cent. "Our real concern, however, should be to focus on the acquisition of knowledge and employing it to our benefit rather than just accessing information," commented Nabil Ali, an expert in computer programming and the author of a background paper on ICT in the report. "Knowledge is quickly becoming a highly-priced economic commodity, and ICT will be employed as a gateway to colonisation and a brain drain." For Malak Zaalouk, head of educational programmes at UNICEF, the answer to improving knowledge resides in upgrading basic education. "Instead of the prevailing system of rote learning, the educational system should be changed to provide children with the skills needed in a postmodern world; it should promote the development of critical thinking and creativity," Zaalouk said, adding, "I see real hope for early childhood education."
