Time for a Maltese vision of regional development

Unveiled on Monday, the second Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) is an event that calls for Maltese attention. Written by prominent Arab intellectuals, mainly active in the public and private sectors of the Arab world, it offers a picture of a world on our frontier. The report focuses, this year, on the challenge of building a knowledge-society in the Arab countries.

The starting-point offered is bleak by many criteria. The number of books published in the Arab world (population 280 million), the number of translations of books into Arabic, access to internet, freedom from censorship - you name it, in all of these the Arab world lags far behind much of the rest of the world. And, yes, the 200-page AHDR does link all this to the political nature of Arab regimes.

The picture appears slightly brighter if you change the starting-point. The great history of the Arab world, where culture and knowledge are concerned, as well as the quality of Arab professionals working outside their countries, suggest, as the 2002 report put it last year, that the Arab world is richer than its development indicates.

But let us have some background about Malta's direct interest in a report like the AHDR. By accepting the EU acquis, Malta thereby also accepted the overall objectives of EU aid - sustainable economic and social development; smooth and gradual integration of developing countries into the world economy; poverty reduction; development and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law.

Even the acceding states are expected to strive to reach, by 2006, a contribution of at least 0.33 per cent of gross national income toward overseas development aid. Some of this aid can be given as part of Malta's bilateral arrangements.

This background suggests two things. First, that Malta has an interest in the specific targets of the EU development fund. If we pay, we have a (proportionate) say. Indeed, the Maltese government is currently coming to grips with the setting up of a Maltese development aid unit.

Second, since Malta can direct some aid on the basis of agreements that it enters into on its own, it needs to have its own perspective on what "human development" entails.

The Human Development Index was proposed by Amartya Sen (Nobel in economics) in the 1990s. It was designed to go beyond a definition of development based only on economic indicators - by including statistics to do with literacy, life expectancy, schooling and per capita GDP. The AHDR picks up Sen's cue and goes further, including information on life-long knowledge acquisition - such as information technology, women's access to power and a range of freedoms.

Malta needs to decide how rounded a view of development it is going to take - particularly so far as the southern Mediterranean is concerned. Practice will throw up difficult choices. For example, aid that contributes to better training and education, and better preserved and cleaner cities, in our neighbouring countries will lead to a more stable Mediterranean region - but it will also empower some of our strongest rivals in tourism and industry.

But the hard choices are there for all of Europe. And Malta should insist on them, even if the AHDR does not.

The report is brave in insisting on "internal" reform in Arab countries - brave because many of the writers are based in their countries. The insistence on "internal" must be understood in a context where several Arab governments and their apologists (though less so their citizens) like to blame their ills almost entirely on Israel and America.

But in another sense, the insistence on "internal" reform lets too many countries off the hook. The report is surely right in its insistence that significant state spending must be redirected to education. But where will the money come from? The bloated military budgets? As Mark LeVine, a historian at the University of California, remarked last year (Middle East Report, July 26) apropos of the first report, it leaves unasked the question: What will Western governments do if Arab regimes drastically reduce the amount of money they contribute to the Western arms industry?

The 2002 AHDR has arguably had some effect on Arab regimes and so (more controversially) has the Iraq war. Over the last six months several governments have started using the rhetoric of reform. Arab democracy activists have been emboldened but they are divided about the reality of the promise of the current moment.

That reality will remain in doubt so long as democracy activists do not have guarantees. As LeVine put it: "How could Arab citizens successfully challenge corrupt and autocratic regimes when Western governments turn a blind eye to large-scale abuses of human, civil and political rights by client regimes?"

The 2003 Arab Human Development Report is available online at: http://www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr.

ranierfsadni@europe.com