The crises in the Arab Region and the global Agenda of the Development Debate

While the Arab region’s countries and peoples are busy with their crisis conditions as a result of the difficulties and challenges facing the democratic transition process, preparations continue for the UN General Assembly’s 68th summit in late September. The summit is expected to consider the political situation around the world, and the situation of the Arab region will be one of the most important cases on the agenda, particularly the crisis in Syria that has taken on international dimensions. On the one hand, the scope of blatant interference in the internal conflict by regional and international powers widened, and the Syrian Revolution turned into a regional arena of conflict with international dimensions due, on the other hand, to the use of internationally-banned weapons of mass destruction in many stages of the conflict (their recent use in residential areas led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent citizens).

But the summit will also consider the development and environmental challenges that the world will face in the coming years. It will seek to draw up a plan of development beyond 2015, the proposed year for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of which little has been realized. While the debate revolves around the factors that caused the failure of efforts to achieve development goals, despite the many resources and energies spent, there is deep disagreement among member states about diagnosing the causes of this failure.

Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, this division was clear on numerous occasions, particularly among developing countries supported by some UN organizations that believe that the crisis reflects a defect in the existing world order in terms of governance and the nature of international trade and financial policies. Therefore, the situation requires reconsideration of global governance, including international decision-making processes and the nature of international relations. True, international organizations are said to have weak democratic decision-making processes, whereby donor countries dominate the decisions, and developing countries do not have sufficient voting weight in decision-making. However, the basis of the defect lies in the development model promoted by these institutions. Economic paradigm endorsed for decades have shown results that are exacerbated in more than one region of the world, including the centers of the capitalist system itself.

In recent years, a new development model is discussed and is supposed to be followed to eradicate poverty, unemployment and social exclusion. Views focus on the necessity of activating the role of the state and enhancing its abilities, in order for it to protect the rights of its citizens against violations caused by the liberalization of financial markets and investments and by unfair competition. However, the industrialized countries in the framework of the Group of Eight (G8), which is backed by the international financial institutions, insist that among the causes of the crisis are trade restrictions laid down by some developing countries that are preventing market access of industrial and agricultural goods from industrialized countries and to oppose the liberalization of services sectors, particularly in the financial and banking sector.

The split in views about the nature of the crisis and ways to address it is not an expression of ideological conflict; it is certainly a political conflict meant to defend interests. Industrialized countries seek to expand international markets for their investment firms, particularly in developing countries, in order to get out of the multidimensional crisis that struck them out five years ago and from which they have not recovered. The US government spent hundreds of billions of dollars to bailout companies and troubled banks and expand the labor market, while European governments adopted austerity measures by reducing public spending on services and currently seek to strike bilateral agreements of free trade with various partners, especially countries of the South, in order to achieve further liberalization in the field of investment laws and competition, hoping that this would help them out of the crises in terms of growth and unemployment. Arab revolutions have shown that the crisis does not brook delay because impoverishment, marginalization and human rights violations have serious consequences that the mightiest of dictatorships could not face. So it is no longer possible to rely on traditional treatments through short-term and partial solutions that only postpone crises and do not abolish them. The Arab region needs to create more than 50 million decent jobs during the next two decades (according to International Labor Organization standards), in order to achieve justice among their citizens, political stability and social security. The new jobs should ensure reasonable income rates and overall social protection systems, in order to lead to the improvement of living conditions of citizens – this has become almost impossible under existing policies.

In this context, the UN Secretary General presented a report on the situation of development in the world and the tasks that must be adhered to, in order to achieve the agreed upon international development goals. Entitled A Life of Dignity for All, the document focuses on development plans and programs, topped by the issue of peace and security, since armed conflicts drain a lot of resources and energy, promote divisions, lead to the spread of violence and contribute to the establishment of oppressive and corrupt systems, and impede the possible adoption of policies that lead to improve peoples’ conditions. Solutions required to stop conflicts must be based on international laws and norms, and on human rights, especially the right to self-determination, and must be accompanied by mechanisms that promote transitional justice and avert impunity.

The international debate examines the developmental state role, which has been neglected for decades, causing all of these crises. Being a system of legislation, laws and institutions, the state must work in the service of citizens and their well-being, rather than being a tool for repression and accumulation of illegal profits. What is required is a state that protects the rights of its citizens, determines the needs of domestic and regional markets, and develops policies and programs that enhance productive capacities and contribute to stimulating investments and competitiveness in sectors of high added value. Only productive economies addressed to the domestic and regional markets can stand against crises. Sovereignty over markets does not mean a return to protectionist policies; it gives states some flexibility to protect the rights of their citizens, especially when it comes to sovereignty over food – a concept that has become one of the challenges faced by developing countries in general and by Arab countries in particular.

The UN Secretary General’s report to the General Assembly refers to the “inequality” as an issue that is beyond the theme of poverty, unemployment and marginalization and is combined with human dignity and human rights, especially the right to live in dignity. Therefore, redistributive policies occupy a key position in new development approaches. They require fair tax policies that redistribute wealth to society in an equitable manner. But services are also redistribution mechanisms; they must be seen as rights enjoyed by citizens, such as the right to health, education, housing, public services, communications, transportation and others. However, the new topic raised in this debate is the question of wages as part of the economic and financial policies that contribute to stimulate the economy and enhancing the purchasing power, in tandem with efforts conducive to strengthening local productivity capacities according to market needs and reducing dependence on imported goods or aid. 

But on the subject of trade, which is supposed to be one of the basic tools to enhance development efforts and achieve growth rates that contribute to providing the resources needed to be redistributed to the community, the challenge lies in how to make trade in line with human rights and a catalyst for development. Current practices in international trade relations confirm that industrialized countries contribute to trade distortion, in order to serve their own interests and the interests of transnational corporations, especially in agriculture. World Trade Organization (WTO) member states have not yet reached an agreement in this area since the launch of the Doha Round in 2001. The Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) the transfer of technology and has negative implications for the production of pharmaceutical and agricultural products that are necessary for developing countries. The same applies to the trade in services agreement (GATS). Ongoing discussions on the MDGs are concomitant with preparations for the WTO’s Ninth Ministerial Meeting; new agreements on investment and competition will be discussed. These agreements restrict national policy space and give foreign investments additional rights at the expense of national sovereignty. Developing countries demand the application of the principle of “special and differential treatment” for them; this is a fundamental principle of the organization but has not been applied. Developing countries also demand the adoption of flexibilities in the implementation of the agreement on agriculture, in order to be able to protect their food security, especially in light of the crisis of rising food prices.

The Secretary General’s report tackles on the subject of partnership with the business sector as an essential tool to achieve development goals. It is a thorny issue that is consuming efforts in the current debate. The “business sector” often refers to the “corporate sector” which in their nature seek bumper and fast profit, and require high government guarantees to encourage them to invest, therefore, they dictate conditions on national governments to turn them into a tool to protect their interests instead of being guarantors of human rights for their citizens and of environmental sustainability criteria.

The public-private partnership is necessary and required, but there are important preconditions. A main condition is the approval of specific and binding human rights standards based on the existing international system as an integral whole. Also, there should be an agreement on mechanisms to protect those rights and punish violators. Existing dispute resolution mechanisms and international arbitration protect the rights of corporations; this is shown by the outcomes of the majority of international arbitration cases, which favor companies at the expense of the rights of nations and peoples (the case of Egypt is the biggest example of this). 

Finally, developing countries and civil society organizations underscore the need for the development approach to be comprehensive and integral, therefore, the trend towards the adoption of the objective-based framework faces serious risks, including the fact that the policies conducive to the achievement of the goals are uncorrelated. This happened with the MDGs since the beginning of the millennium. Required indicators to measure progress should be qualitative, rather than the current quantitative indicators that reflect unrealistic results, therefore, hindering the possibility of objective and correct evaluation.

All these matters are for dialogue at the international level but are under unequal conditions. Industrialized countries, with strong support from transnational corporations and international financial, banking and commercial institutions, practice aggressive defense of their interests and so called “rights” to twist the arms of governments in developing countries. At the same time, the majority of governments in developing countries suffer from a crisis of “legitimacy” as they do not reflect the democratic aspirations of their peoples and their rights.

The challenges at the international level at the World Summit require fulfilling the tasks on democratization in developing countries (especially in the Arab region), providing the required degree of security and stability, and focusing on setting priorities and national and regional targets and contributing on their basis in the international dialogue.

Ziad Abdel Samad. Source: Arab NGO for Development (ANND).