From the Atlantic to the Gulf, people -- women, men and children -- are the real wealth and hope of Arab countries. Policies for development and growth in the Arab region must focus on freeing people from deprivation, in all its forms, and expanding their choices. Over the last five decades, remarkable progress has been achieved in advancing human development and reducing poverty. However, much still needs to be done to address the backlog of deprivation and imbalance. Since 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been providing (and Oxford University Press has been publishing) annual Human Development Reports that set out the basic social and economic indicators for the nations of the world. The Arab Human Development Report 2002, published this summer by the UNDP's Regional Bureau of Arab States (RBAS), is the first regional report of its kind. Focusing exclusively on the Arab world, the Report carefully dissects and analyzes the region's strengths and failings and explains why the region has fallen behind so much of the world. Written by a team of elite Arab intellectuals and policymakers, the Report concludes that the Arab world today is a civilization bypassed by global trade, democracy, technology, and by women's rights. Scrutinizing the 22 member states of the Arab League and their 280 million people, the Report argues that the root cause for Arab underdevelopment is threefold - three deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of women's rights, and a deficit of knowledge. The Report probes the causes of these deficits and identifies three areas where Arab institutional structures are hindering performance and crippling human development: governance, women's empowerment, and knowledge. "An accurate diagnosis of a problem is an important part of the solution. It is precisely for this reason that the Regional Bureau for Arab States has commissioned a group of distinguished Arab intellectuals to produce the Arab Human Development Report. The wealth of unbiased, objective analysis it contains is part of our contribution to Arab peoples and policy-makers in the search for a brighter future. The report shows that Arab countries have made significant strides in more than one area of human development in the last three decades. Nevertheless, the predominant characteristic of the current Arab reality seems to be the existence of deeply rooted shortcomings in the Arab institutional structure. These shortcomings are an obstacle to building human development. The report summarizes them as three deficits relating to freedom, empowerment of women, and knowledge. These deficits constitute weighty constraints on human capability that must be lifted. From a positive perspective, the realisation of human development in the Arab world requires transcending current shortcomings, and even transforming them into their opposites, i.e. advantages enjoyed by all Arabs, assets all Arab countries can be proud of in the Third Millennium."--(p. 180) The first Arab States' Report acknowledges that Arab countries have made substantial progress over the past three decades. Life expectancy has increased by 15 years; mortality rates for children under five years of age have fallen by about two thirds; adult literacy has almost doubled, reflecting large increases in gross educational enrollments. Yet it is obvious that Arab countries have not developed as quickly as comparable nations in other regions. Indeed, more than half of Arab women are illiterate; the region's infant mortality rate is twice as high as in Latin America and the Caribbean. Over the past 20 years, income growth per capita has also been extremely low. The Report highlights the causes of these deficits and identifies three areas where Arab institutional structures are hindering performance and crippling human development: governance, women's empowerment, and access to knowledge This report, the first regional Human Development Report for the Arab States, covers a total of 22 countries from the Maghreb to the Gulf. It probes the causes of deficits and identifies three areas where Arab institutional structures are hindering performance and crippling human development: governance, women's empowerment, and knowledge.
