Towards Arab Development

By Yusuf Mansur

This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 05/04/2011

 

None of the 300 million people that live in the countries of the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region can claim that his/her country is developed. In spite of past wealth, the present and future are bleak, unstable and poor. The journey should be from autocracy and failed economic experiments to democracy and development. Based on almost two decades of work in policy design and research, here is my view on how the two (development and democracy) relate.

Development in its simplest definition means a state of steadily rising economic growth. But for growth to be sustainable, it must also be equitable, whereby all share the fruits of success.

Economic growth figures witnessed in the Arab world have proved to be dependent on the demand for hydrocarbon products (oil and gas). Even the non-oil-exporting economies such as Jordan and Lebanon have been dependent in their growth on the fortunes of the oil- and gas-producing economies of the GCC.

Moreover, for growth to be equitable, the governments have to be accountable to the people. Lack of accountability means quick knee jerk reactions, lack of strategic planning (no Arab economy has an economic charter), quick wins and remedies (while it is common knowledge that there is no easy, short road towards development) and the livelihoods of the masses.

Arabs have seen, time and again, how quickly reforms that are decided by autocrats floundered and failed. In many cases, the proposed reforms proved to be immediately wrong and made matters worse, except, of course, for the few cronies of autocratic rulers who went on to amass fortunes in foreign banks while the poverty of the many increased.

Pendulum-like shifts in policy design and implementation have led to instability and impoverishment of the majority in the private sector in the region, and only those close to the source of power, the political elites, could benefit from such a state of uncertainty. Hence, accountability of the government to the governed is a necessary underpinning of development.

Yet to have accountability, a nation must have transparency so that the opposition (which is silenced in WANA) can screen and evaluate what is going on. The opposition, being present in parliament, can thus criticise objectively and monitor the performance of government. Not having a vibrant opposition means that the government is not accountable to the masses and possibly only to the autocrat.

Transparency requires a free press so that the corrupt can be exposed to the public; exposure also means that dirt cannot be pushed under the rug. According to the Press Freedom Index, in most Arab countries, despite allegations to the contrary, the press is not free. Therefore, transparency is also absent. Consequently, development cannot occur without a free press.

But to have a free press, transparency and accountability, the system must be democratic. Therefore, in order to achieve development, the Arab world must become democratic. Rulers who keep their countries outside the realm of democracy also keep them poor and underdeveloped. For, as Amartya Sen, the recipient of the Noble Prize in Economics in 1998, pointed out, poverty is “unfreedom”.