Professional Documents
Culture Documents
in Brief
United Nations
Development
Programme
Regional Bureau
for Arab States
Copyright © 2009
By the United Nations Development Programme,
Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS),
1 UN Plaza, New York, New York, 10017, USA
The analysis and policy recommendations of this Report do not necessarily reflect
the views of the United Nations Development Programme, its Executive Board
Members or UN Member States. The Report is the work of an independent team of
authors sponsored by the Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP.
The report
in brief
This is the fifth volume in the series of Arab Human Development Reports sponsored
by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and independently
authored by intellectuals and scholars from Arab countries.
Like its predecessors, this Report provides eminent Arab thinkers a platform
from which to articulate a comprehensive analysis of their own contemporary
milieu. It is not a conventional report produced by the United Nations. Rather,
it is an independent publication that gives a voice to a representative group of
Arab intellectuals whose sober and self-critical appraisals might not otherwise
be heard in the particular circumstances of the region. The views of the authors
are supplemented by an opinion poll conducted in four Arab countries—Kuwait,
Lebanon, Morocco and the Occupied Palestinian Territory—that represent a range
of political and cultural contexts for the Report’s analyses. A special Youth Forum
This Report is convened for the Report also provides insights from young Arabs.
an independent Inspired by UNDP’s 1994 global Human Development Report on human security,
publication the present study takes up that subject as it concerns the Arab countries.1 Its
starting point is that, seven years after the publication of the first Arab Human
Development Report, the region’s fault lines as traced in that analysis may have
deepened.2 The question thus arises: why have obstacles to human development
in the region proved so stubborn?
This new Report proposes that the answers lie in the fragility of the region’s
political, social, economic and environmental structures, in its lack of people-
centred development policies and in its vulnerability to outside intervention.
Together, these characteristics undermine human security—the kind of material
and moral foundation that secures lives, livelihoods and an acceptable quality of
life for the majority. Human security is a prerequisite for human development, and
its widespread absence in Arab countries has held back their progress.
The world order that followed the end of threats such as pandemics, the drug trade
Widespread the Cold War has proved to be tumultu- and human trafficking have all laid siege
absence of human ous. External and internal challenges to to traditional notions of security. Within
the integrity of states have multiplied. countries, spreading poverty, unemploy-
security in Arab
From without, environmental pollution, ment, civil wars, sectarian and ethnic
countries has held international terrorism, large population conflicts and authoritarian repression
back their progress movements, a melting global financial have exposed the limits of many states
system and the rise of other cross-border in guaranteeing their citizens’ rights and
freedoms. While preserving the integrity egorization of threats to human security
of states remains the highest consideration originally posited by UNDP and defines
of national security, a newer concern with human security as “the liberation of human
protecting the lives of the people who beings from those intense, extensive, pro-
reside in them has overtaken that preoc- longed, and comprehensive threats to which
cupation. The concept of human security, their lives and freedom are vulnerable”. Its
which complements that of national secu- chapters focus on:
rity, brings this change in perspective into • Pressures on environmental resources
focus. • The performance of the state in guaran-
In the Arab region, human insecu- teeing or undermining human security
rity—pervasive, often intense and with • The personal insecurity of vulnerable
consequences affecting large numbers of groups
people—inhibits human development. • Economic vulnerability, poverty and
Human security It is revealed in the impacts of military unemployment
focuses on occupation and armed conflict in Iraq, • Food security and nutrition
enabling peoples Sudan, Somalia and Occupied Palestinian • Health and human security
Territory. It is found in countries that enjoy • The systemic insecurity of occupation
to contain or avert relative stability where the authoritarian and foreign military intervention
threats to their state, buttressed by flawed constitutions
lives, livelihoods and unjust laws, often denies citizens their Human security can be measured on
and human dignity rights. Human insecurity is heightened by both an objective and subjective level,
swift climatic changes, which threaten the and in quantitative and qualitative terms.
livelihoods, income and access to food and The Report takes the view that no single
water of millions of Arabs in future. It is composite index of human security would
reflected in the economic vulnerability of be valid, reliable or sufficiently sensitive
one-fifth of the people in some Arab states, to varying levels of human security and
and more than half in others, whose lives to different circumstances in the region.
are impoverished and cut short by hunger Rather, it affirms the relevance of discrete
and want. Human insecurity is palpable quantitative indicators and opinion surveys
and present in the alienation of the region’s at the level of the region, its sub-regions
rising cohort of unemployed youth and and country groups.
in the predicaments of its subordinated
women, and dispossessed refugees.
Seven dimensions of threat
Water scarcity: Total available surface Water pollution in Arab countries has
water resources in the Arab countries are grown into a serious challenge. It is mainly
estimated at 277 billion cubic meters per attributed to the increasing use of chemi-
year3, only 43 per cent of which originates cal fertilizers, pesticides, and horticultural
within the Arab countries. Surface water and veterinary medical treatments whose
resources shared with neighbouring long-lasting traces find their way into the
countries outside the region account for water. The lack of access to sufficient clean
approximately 57 per cent of its total water water threatens human security in many
requirements. Years of effort have yielded ways. It can lead to the spread of disease
the establishment of formal agreements among children, such as dysentery, and
(such as the Nile Basin Initiative) on the affect school attendance and academic
management of shared water resources. achievement. It deprives women of long
However, most are partial, ineffective and hours of the day which they could devote Desert has
inequitable in terms of the full spectrum to personal and income-generating activi- swallowed up more
of riparian rights. At the regional and ties rather than fetching water for their than two-thirds
interregional levels, cooperation on water families. In addition, water scarcity and
of total land area
usage and management is heavily affected pollution threaten agricultural and food
by prevailing political tensions and ongo- production and precipitate domestic rival-
of the region
ing conflicts. ries over scarce water resources.
On the other hand, levels of air pol-
Stressed groundwater systems are often lution in Arab countries, in general, are
the only source of fresh water in the among the lowest in the world. In 2004,
region, yet reserves in renewable aquifers carbon dioxide emissions did not exceed
are being withdrawn faster than they can 1,348.4 metric tons, compared to 12,162.9
be replenished. Transboundary conflicts, metric tons in middle-income countries
poor distribution and heavy use, especially and 13,318.6 metric tons in the OECD
of ground resources, characterize water countries. However, Arab countries have
use in much of the Arab countries. This relatively low carbon dioxide emission
leads to a lack of clean water for much of rates mainly because most have not pro-
the population and the waste of significant gressed very far with industrialisation.
Endnotes
1
UNDP 1994.
2
UNDP 2002.
3
UNDP/AHDR calculations based on FAO’s AQUASTAT database.
4
UNDP 2007.