The Arab Human Development Report 2002: review and reform

Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Spring, 2004 by Hassan bin Talal

THE UNDP REGIONAL BUREAU of Arab States made a major contribution to development debate when it published its first comprehensive report on Arab human development. While the Report builds on the concept of human development used by UNDP in its annual Report on the subject, it goes on to expand and modify the concept and methodology significantly. The Arab Human Development Report 2002 thus provides us with a tool of measurement which it calls an "alternative human development index" (AHDI). it argues that this index is a more representative and humane measurement of human development than the Human Development Index (HDI) used in UNDP global reports.

There is no doubt that the AHDI represents a comprehensive tool of measurement for monitoring human development in its broadest definition of enhancing human capacity and choices. But this very broad definition has required the construction of a very complex and not entirely reliable tool of measurement. It is rather biased toward complex qualitative aspects of human development, whose measurement may require a different methodology.

The AHDI is quite different from the HDI used in UNDP annual global reports. Only life expectancy and educational attainment are common to both indices. The AHDI makes a major departure from well established norms of measurement when it excludes average per capita income. This is most unusual, because empirical data have consistently shown a close positive correlation between increase in per capita income and advances in education, health and general living conditions. One only needs to look at the development performance of the Arab oil-exporting countries to confirm the strong causal relationship between increase in income and human development. To exclude per capita income from the AHDI is to put the Arab countries at a disadvantage, because their average income as a group is higher than other regions of developing countries. The result will be a negative contribution to the measurement of Arab human development.

The AHDI incorporates a freedom index, which, as stated in box 1.5, covers a "broad range of political and personal freedom enjoyed in reality, not in declared documents and policies." Although it is stated in the same box that the authors of the Report do not fully endorse the content of the Freedom House assessment or its methodology, the Report nonetheless goes on to include the index as a major component of the AHDI. Again, the Arab countries are put at a disadvantage regarding all forms of freedom as covered by the Freedom House index. Because political and civil freedom are either absent (in some Arab countries) or, at best, are restricted and constrained (in all of them), the net result will be negative on the scale of freedom measurement. Other components of personal freedom that are legally recognized in many countries, such as choice of one's religion or social behavior regarding marriage partners or gay tendencies, are strictly forbidden by law and social values in all Arab countries.

Another factor which contributes to placing the Arab countries on the lowest scale of human development is the inclusion of carbon emission. This inclusion punishes the Arab countries because of high per capita emission in all of the oil- and gas-producing Arab countries. Moreover, it is not at all agreed that carbon emission has an immediate or obvious impact on human development. This is not to deny the impact of the environment on human life, but carbon emission has more to do with the ozone layer and global warming than with urban environment and water pollution.

The inclusion of a gender empowerment measure (GEM) as developed by UNDP adds to the disadvantage of the Arab countries because women's education is a relatively recent development in most Arab countries. Girls who attended school in the last three decades are only now becoming qualified professionals available for positions of responsibility. Taking into account where most Arab countries began with girl's education, we must acknowledge that they have moved so fast that the girls have almost caught up with boys' enrollment at all three stages of education. As for political participation and effective leadership, the space so far has been rather limited for both male and female. It is only recently that we have begun to see men and women freely elected to public office. Wider and more rapid female participation is expected in most Arab countries in the coming years.

To compare women's empowerment in the Arab region with other areas with long established systems for women's education and public participation is to do injustice to the remarkable progress made by most Arab countries in women's empowerment. Most Arab countries have made a late start in this important component of human development. But the speed with which they have moved is impressive. The future holds more promise than is shown in the Report.

The other component included in the AHDI is Internet hosting per capita to measure access to information and acquisition of knowledge. Again, this aspect of human development is limited in the Arab countries as a group. One reason is the high rate of illiteracy in several Arab countries. The other reason is the limited spread of the English language among the literate population. But all this is changing rather rapidly. We have gone through this explanation of the components of the alternative human development index (AHDI) only to understand why the Arab countries almost by definition will be at the bottom of the scale of human development as measured by that index. But if we use the global UNDP human development index (HDI) we will find 4 Arab countries with a high level of human development, 10 with medium and only 4-5 at a low level. This basic difference between indices should be kept in mind when passing judgment on the relative progress of the Arab countries on the scale of human development as measured by population density, rate of illiteracy, level of education, life expectancy, public health and degree of social development. With such extreme variations as exist between individual Arab countries, it would be more realistic to measure the rate of human development case by case in each country. This approach would answer the question of how fast or slow a given country has advanced in comparison with another country under generally similar conditions. Were we to apply such a method of analysis, the Gulf Cooperation Council members would show a very rapid rate of human development during the last three decades.