In the aftermath of the peoples’ revolutions in the Arab region, an expansion of IMF loan agreements was witnessed in the Arab region; including new loans with Jordan, Morocco, and Yemen, and ongoing negotiations for loans with Tunisia and Egypt. People in the Arab countries face multiple social and economic challenges, including high debt and deficits, a youth unemployment bulge, and deepening inequalities since before the global crisis and the peoples’ uprisings. Today, peoples’ voices in the region are cautioning against the implications of the IMF loans and their austerity conditions. Peoples’ aspirations for a genuinely democratic transition towards social and economic justice are in jeopardy if fiscal adjustment constrains the government’s ability to carry out public investment for the preservation of vital social sectors and essential services, and to create employment, wages and productive sector growth in the real economy.

Bangalore - After independence, we got bureaucracy not democracy, said Bhaskar Rao Gorantla, Research Director of National Social Watch (India). He was addressing a gathering of civil society representatives at a consultation programme organized by the Karnataka Social Watch on administrative reforms.

Listing various structural problems in the administration, he said that although the central and state level administrations have undergone a positive change since independence, the district/local level administrative bodies have not undergone any significant changes.

As a whirlpool, the crisis that has been lasting for the past 5 years has hit Italy hard in 2012.
The country was put under the "technical” government of Mario Monti, who acted as a commissioner and subjected Italy to a shock therapy of austerity policies, similar to the structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF. While intended to reanimate the economy, it plunged the country into a real recession under the blackmail of two parameters: the "spread" between Italy and Germany, and the Public Debt, which has grown another 10%, reaching 127,3% of the GNP. It is not by chance that the Prime Minister Mario Monti has been International Advisor to Goldman Sachs.

The deterioration of the living conditions of a large part of the Italian population concerned especially the "working poor": in Italy, there are three million, about 15% of the total employed. Eight million Italians live with less than one thousand euro per month. The crisis has seriously damaged the middle class.

Photo: Agaron Adibekyan (Sociometr)

Armenia adopted the “UN Millennium Declaration” in 2000. It was obvious that the goals cannot be comprehensive, and each country should determine its current problems, especially if the solution is defined by the Constitution and other laws and international obligations. As a result of MDG local adaptation the following goals: “Achieve universal primary education”, “Contribute to gender equality and empowerment of women” were not recognized as the first order priority since the Constitution obliges the state to ensure that all citizens work, have a decent standard of living, access to all levels of education, professional training, health care and healthy living conditions, etc.

However despite these two goals were not emphasized as priority ones some achievements were observed with respect to these spheres.

The programs initiated for eradicating poverty and achieving equality were sentenced to fail, since they are not focused on human being, that is the program results are not tied to improvement of real life of people.

Malaysia Petroleum Resources Corp
(Photo: etp.pemandu.gov.my)

According to government data, Malaysia is said to be on the way towards achieving all eight MDGs; commitment is reflected in the Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011-2015). But Malaysia’s development trajectory has hitherto primarily been driven by a combination of low worker wages amidst high revenues for petroleum, palm oil and rubber commodities and foreign direct investment in the manufacturing sector. In other words, very little of the profits in the form of oil royalties, for example, have gone towards developing the states that produce a large bulk of the oil, such as Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah and Sarawak, but which happen also to be the poorest states in Malaysia.

And while the government announced its motto to be “People First, Performance Now” and its goals to reduce crime; fight corruption; improve student outcomes; raise living standards of low-income households; improving rural basic infrastructure; and improve urban public transport, it appears that while lip-service has been paid, little pertaining to the structural and systemic inequities, inequalities and injustices of the political or social economy have been dealt with or addressed with any substance.

Malaysia’s inadequate financial, technological and market infrastructure and human capital have been pinpointed as reasons why it cannot compete in economically higher-value-added products and services.

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