Herausforderungen für den Orient

Threats to human security impede development in the Arab countries

• Strengthen the rule of law to guarantee essential rights, freedoms and opportunities for all, and to resolve conflicts over power and resources which create great instability. In six Arab countries, there is an outright ban on the formation of political parties, while restrictions on political activities and civic organizations in other countries often amount to de facto prohibition. National security measures such as the declaration of emergency law often serve as a pretext to suspend basic rights, exempt rulers from constitutional limitations, and afford security agencies sweeping powers.
  
  “The civil state ruled by laws that respect human rights is the best guarantor of human security,” said Madawi Al-Rasheed, professor of religious anthropology at King’s College in London and a Core Team member for the Arab Human Development Report 2009. “In the Arab region, states are far from this ideal.”
  
  Moreover, whereas some analysts focused on the Arab countries treat identity differences as a source of insecurity in the Arab countries, the authors of this report argue that the diversity of the population in Arab countries requires insightful management by the state under the larger concept of full citizenship.
• Protect the environment by strengthening institutions, enacting and enforcing laws, integrating environmental concerns into development planning, and raising environmental awareness through youth education. Desertification threatens about 2.9 million square kilometres, or roughly one-fifth of the total area of Arab countries. Meanwhile, natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate, as population pressures mount. The average number of live births per woman in the Arab region is 3.6 compared to a global average of 2.6. At this growth rate, the region is expected to be home to nearly 385 million people by 2015, up from approximately 330 million currently.
  
  “The human security of people in the Arab region depends, first and foremost, on the health of the environment that sustains all of us,” said Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States and UN Assistant Secretary-General. “Urgent action is needed to put the region on a development path which is more sustainable.”
• Safeguard the rights of women by changing laws and attitudes which entrench gender-based discrimination. The report notes that women in Arab countries have little access to justice and few possibilities of legal redress when they are victims of violence. In conflict areas, women’s insecurity increases sharply.
  
  “Though violence against women can be found in every country, women in societies with entrenched male dominance, patriarchal kinship patterns, and legalized discrimination – the situation in many Arab countries – are acutely vulnerable,” said Munira Fakhro, former Associate Professor at the University of Bahrain and an Advisory Board member for the Arab Human Development Report 2009. “Much of the violence against Arab women is inflicted unseen in the home, on wives and sisters, daughters and mothers.”
• Address the weak structural underpinnings of the Arab oil economy and move toward a more diversified, knowledge-based economy that provides sufficient employment. Arab countries are greatly exposed to the fluctuations of oil prices, as oil accounts for more than 70 percent of the region’s exports. The region also has the world’s highest unemployment rate – 14.4 percent versus a world average of 6.3 percent. Given current population growth, the Arab countries will have to create 50 million new jobs by 2020 to accommodate the anticipated workforce.
  
  “The fabled oil wealth of the Arab countries presents a misleading picture of their economic situation, which masks the structural weaknesses of many Arab economies and the resulting insecurity of countries and citizens alike,” said Walid Khadduri, consultant for the Middle East Economic Survey and a Core Team member for the Arab Human Development Report 2009.
• Tackle poverty and end hunger which persists despite the comparative affluence of the region. An estimated one in five people in the Arab region lives below the internationally recognized poverty threshold of US $2-per-day. A significantly larger proportion of Arabs in countries studied by the report, however, lives under nationally-determined poverty lines and still cannot afford bare necessities. Accordingly a more accurate estimate would be that two in five Arabs live in poverty. Large segments of the population in low-income countries face basic deprivation, reflected, for example, in inadequate access to safe water and a high incidence of underweight children. The number of undernourished persons in the region increased from around 19.8 million in 1990-1992 to 25.5 million in 2002-2004.
  
  “Economic security and food security are critical components of human security,” said Walid Khadduri, consultant for the Middle East Economic Survey and a Core Team member for to the Arab Human Development Report 2009. “Though the Arab region overall has a comparatively low poverty rate, people in the least developed Arab countries and marginalized groups within affluent countries face serious deprivation.”
• Boost public health by expanding access to affordable, quality healthcare with an emphasis on preventive medicine, combating cultural practices which harm women’s health, and promoting compassionate public information campaigns on HIV/AIDS combined with increased testing and treatment.
  
  “A human security approach to health entails treating health not just as the absence of disease, but as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being,” said Rafia Ghubash, President of the Gulf University in Bahrain and an Advisory Board member for the Arab Human Development Report 2009. “Human security in the Arab region requires making health a human right.”
• End occupation, armed conflict, and military intervention which cause human suffering, erase decades of economic development, and undermine the fragile progress of political reform by bolstering extremist forces and also undermining moderate voices. More than 17 million people in the Arab region have been forced by violent conflict to flee their homes, making this the region of the world with the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons.
  
  “Occupation and military intervention in the region have the gravest effects on the Palestinian, Iraqi, and Somali people,” said Clovis Maksoud, Professor of International Relations at American University in Washington D.C. and an Advisory Board member for the Arab Human Development Report 2009. “The ongoing interventions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Iraq, and Somalia undercut human security in other Arab countries as well.”