Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1998, pages 74, 91

Special Report

Most of Arab World Scores Low in U.N. Human Development Report for FY 1998

By Peter Kiernan

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released in September its annual Human Development Report for 1998. Each year the report, issued since 1990, concentrates on a different theme concerning development. This year’s theme was world consumption. The report also includes a “human development index” (HDI) which ranks 174 countries on their performance in health (measured by life expectancy), education (adult literacy and educational enrollment) and per capita GDP (PPP). The HDI is the average score of these three categories. The higher the score, the higher that country’s human development.

The 1998 report shows mixed performances for the Arab states. While improvements are being made, the average per capita income of the region suggests that the overall level of human development should be higher.

For instance, this year’s HDI classifies five (of 22) Arab states as having “high human development” (Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Libya). However this is largely because of their high oil revenues, which boost their per capita GDP.

The four Gulf states mentioned above have per capita GDP comparable to industrial states but have literacy rates of between 80 to 85 percent, well below the average in the developed world. To be fair, these states started their oil-financed national development programs from a very low base, yet other developing countries with smaller per capita national income (such as Korea and Chile) rank higher on the HDI with superior literacy, educational enrollment and life expectancy rates.

Most Arab states are classified in the “medium human development” bracket. This includes Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.

Yemen and Sudan are classified as having “low human development.”

Saudi Arabia and Oman are also states that, given their per capita incomes, should be higher up on the scale. Although these countries have experienced significant improvements in literacy rates, educational enrollments and life expectancy (particularly Oman), they still lag behind other developing countries with comparable or inferior per capita national income. For instance, illiteracy in Saudi Arabia is still 37 percent and in Oman it is 40 percent. The challenge lies ahead in these countries (and in the other Gulf states) to develop their human resources to prepare for the time when dependency on oil revenue alone will not be enough to sustain economic growth.

Given their per capita incomes, some Arab states should be higher up on the scale.

The literacy rate throughout the Arab states is still only 56 percent, lower than in sub-Saharan Africa (56.9 percent) and only slightly higher than in South Asia (50.5 percent). This is despite the fact that real GDP per capita in the Arab world is $4,454, compared to only $1,407 in sub-Saharan Africa and $1,724 in South Asia.

Literacy Gender Gap

There is also a significant gender gap in literacy, with 56 percent of all Arab women being illiterate, compared to only 33 percent of all Arab men. In particular Egypt, Morocco, Yemen and Sudan have female literacy rates of less than 40 percent. Improving literacy requires substantial investment in education, and the World Bank has estimated that children in the Middle East need at least nine years of education by the year 2010 for the region to become internationally competitive. However, this requires a 50 percent increase in primary school enrollments and a 200 percent increase in secondary enrollments.

Investment in education by Arab states has been biased toward the tertiary sector, which only benefits a minority of the population. Ensuring basic literacy and numeracy skills for the entire population, on the other hand, maximizes social benefit.

Manual workers need to read machinery instructions and mothers need to be able to read directions for giving medicine to children. Furthermore, in many Arab states the large number of university graduates who enter the labor force every year find meaningful employment elusive, largely because their skills do not meet the requirements of the labor market. This leaves a legacy of frustration and despair to many of the Arab world’s educated young.

The trend in education at least is heading in the right direction—it is just a question of how quickly and effectively. Primary enrollment in most Arab countries is approaching 100 percent for both boys and girls, and the gap between male and female enrollment in secondary and tertiary enrollments is narrowing. In a region where the more populous Arab states are not blessed with natural resources, the development of human resources is essential for survival in today’s competitive world economy.

The record of health in the Arab world is a similar one to education. While life expectancy and other indicators are improving, the level of per capita income in the region suggests that they, too, should be higher.

The average life expectancy among the Arab states is 63.5. This is much higher than in 1960, when it was only 45.5. However, life expectancy at birth is higher in South-east Asia and East Asia, despite the fact that these two regions have lower average per capita income.

The infant mortality rate has seen rapid improvement, with the average rate of deaths per 1,000 infants dropping from 166 in 1960 to 55. The infant mortality rates in Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen and Sudan, however, are still above 50 per 1,000 births, which is viewed as a “high” rate by UNICEF.

It is no coincidence that these countries (except Libya) also have the lowest literacy rates in the region. Other indicators also suggest there is plenty of room for improvement in the region’s health standards. About one in five Arabs do not have access to safe water, and nearly one in three do not have access to proper sanitation. About 13 percent of the region’s population do not have access to health services, and 17 percent of children are underweight at the age of five.

The state of human development represents a considerable challenge for all the Arab states. On the positive side, development indicators are improving, particularly in health, even at a time when the region has experienced sluggish economic growth brought about by declining oil prices and continuing tension and conflict. However, the oil boom of the 1970s is unlikely to be repeated, and this has implications for the non-oil Arab states as well as the more affluent Gulf states.

Lower oil prices not only mean less export income but also less foreign aid and remittances being transferred to the poorer Arab countries, which have few natural resources of their own and a low level of technological expertise. Therefore, the development of human resources is an imperative if the region is to become a player in the globalized economy, where investment and trade opportunities will flow to countries that have a ready supply of skills and a healthy labor force.

Furthermore, the Middle East is the most militarized region in the world, and this severely impedes socio-economic progress. Middle Eastern and North African states imported approximately 40 percent of the weapons sold in the world in 1996, or $15 billion worth.

Tunisia is the only country in the Arab world that spends a lesser proportion of its GDP on defense than the world average, which is 2.9 percent. Most Arab states spend between 4 and 6 percent of their GDP on defense, while Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia spend between 10 and 15 percent. This represents a misallocation of resources that could be redirected to education and health, a move that has been recommended by the World Bank.

Human development in the Arab world is not just a matter of equitable distribution of resources, it is also a crucial factor in the region’s economic survival. Improvement in these sectors will lead to lower population growth rates, which in turn will enable governments to cope with the environmental and economic pressures of urbanization and the use of two scarce resources in the region: arable land and water. It will also enhance the region’s international competitiveness. While most Arab states are beginning to realize this, clearly a more serious commitment needs to be made.