FORGING A SOCIAL POLICY AGENDA IN THE ESCWA REGION

1
FORGING A SOCIAL POLICY AGENDA IN THE ESCWA
REGION
UN-ESCWA United Nations Economic and Social Comm
ission for Western Asia

• Francois Farah
• Chief, Social Development Division
• UN-ESCWA

2
Our mandate

• ESCWA is firmly committed to promoting and
  advocating for a coherent social policy
  understanding. It is expected that such an
  improved understanding would lead to
  institutionalizing, implementing and sustaining
  an integrated social policy in all aspects of
  public policy making and monitoring in the ESCWA
  region.
• Expected outcome policies that are socially
  equitable, economically productive and
  sustainable
  
• Leading to a more balanced, equitable and
  sustained social peace in the region.

3
Knowing why social policy is so important

• The backbone of the work of UN-ESCWA is based on
  the premise that if social
  
• policy is contextualized, well-designed and
  effectively implemented and
  
• monitored it can serve as a powerful instrument
  in national development
  
• strategies to promote
• EQUITY
• SOCIAL INCLUSION
• SOCIAL JUSTICE
• SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS
• ACCOUNTABLE PUBLIC OFFICE AND
• QUALITY OF LIFE FOR ALL

4
Map showing UN-ESCWA countries
5
Simple map of the Arab region
6
Map of GCC countries
7
Maps showing geographical location of some
selected countries in the presentation
8
What is hindering social development in the
region at the policy level?

• A Few Questions
• Is public policy making consensus based,
  relevant, cost-effective and above all delivering
  dividends for all?
  
• Are ESCWA countries optimizing their human,
  economic and natural potential?
  
• What is the role of civil society in public
  policy making? Is there a public opinion in the
  ESCWA region? How does it express itself and
  through what channels?
• To what extent has the welfare role of the
  government been hijacked by parties within states
  and what has this done to the social contract
  between citizens and the state? Is there a social
  contract or better still is there a good
  understanding of what it is about?
• lack of a consolidated social vision at the
  national level
  

9
What are the region-specific factors on the
ground that have an impact on social policy?

• The cost of wars and conflict in terms of lost
  lives, displacement and setbacks to development
  continues to be significantly high. Some
  countries face political instability, conflict
  and upheaval on a daily basis ie. Iraq, Palestine
  and Lebanon.
• Political and economic uncertainty due to
  conflict leads to among other things
  
• economic instability
• poverty
• social exclusion
• high unemployment rates (21 in 2004 for
  the region)
  

10
How Did ESCWA Go About Promoting Social Policy in
the Member Countries?

• Country Profiles were prepared by national
  experts to
  
• track the mode of public and sectoral policy
  making (health, education, environment etc)
  
• provide a panorama of the characteristics of the
  social safety nets and financing of social
  welfare programmes
  
• Ascertain the coordination mechanisms between the
  state and/among stakeholders
  
• Determine the extent of harmonization of social
  and economic concepts in each country
  
• Preparing country profiles to describe the social
  situation
  
• Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman GCC COUNTRIES
• Jordan and Egypt DIVERSIFIED ECONOMIES
• Iraq and Lebanon CONFLICT-RIDDEN
  COUNTRIES

11
Confronting global challenges throughdiversificat
ion GCC countries

• GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
  Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) possess 45
  of proven global oil and 17 of natural gas
  reserves, as well as 25 of crude oil exports.
  They have witnessed a social and economic
  transformation due to their efforts including
• policy reforms to accelerate non-oil growth
• state enterprise reform and privatization to
  improve public sector efficiency and governance
  to provide more efficient, equitable distribution
  of services
• labor market reform and sustainable job
  opportunities for GCC nationals
  
• improved social indicators
• A relatively low external debt
• donations to poor countries

12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
Increases in national spending on the social
sector the case of Oman (million OR)
SOURCE Annual Statistics Abstract, Finance
Ministry, Oman
15
Economic vs social reform case of Jordan and
Egypt

• Jordan and Egypt are two countries that have,
  since the 1990s undertaken significant political
  and economic reform programmes.
  
• Investments have been mainly targeted at economic
  growth rather than streamlining their social
  sectors and policy agendas.
  
• Even though they are in the conflict zone they
  have been able to stay out of actual conflict.
  The problems are nevertheless very close to home.

16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
Daily survival vs sustainable social policy
Iraq and Lebanon

• Geo-political tensions, the Israeli-Palestinian
  conflict, ongoing war in Iraq,
  
• the July 2006 war and continuous sectarian
  tension in Lebanon have made
  
• policy planners in Iraq and Lebanon too prudent
  to adopt new policies with
  
• long-term benefits. Rather their scope of work
  has, by default, had more immediate, high impact,
  social implications.
  
• For the most part, relevant line Ministries find
  themselves crippled to implement
  
• policy agendas that have been endorsed at all
  levels. What difference would
  
• having a coherent policy strategy at hand make if
  the budget has to be
  
• reallocated to rebuild homes that have been torn
  down, or to feed displaced
  
• families?
• It is this concern about social costs and the
  centrality of addressing urgent
  
• issues related to the daily welfare of citizens
  that defines the way in which
  
• policy is shaped and implemented in Iraq and
  Lebanon.
  

19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
Some commonalities among UN-ESCWA countries
perceptions from the Country Profiles

• Wide income disparities
• Countries are slow to move on structural reforms
  
  
• Over reliance on oil exports on the part of
  oil-producing countries
  
• Widespread poverty and social exclusion
• Public expenditure on social sector is still low
  
  
• Inequitable distribution of services
• High illiteracy rates
• High unemployment rates
• Gender imbalance in access to education, health

22
Inequitable access to social services breaking
the cycle of inequity

• The region is home to 5 of the world population
  but 1 of the worlds renewable fresh water.
  
• Inequitable distribution of water per capita
  supply stands at 1/3 of its 1960 level and
  availability is expected to halve over the next
  30 years.
• Managing water as an economic resource and
  looking into the regional dimension of the water
  challenge is crucial for human welfare, economic
  growth and stability.

23
Spending on the social sector developed vs.
developing countries
World Health Statistics 2006 Demographic and
Socioeconomic Statistics
24
Challenges and Opportunities in implementing
effective policy practice in member countries

• Lack of consensus on the definition of social
  policy and its underpinnings
  
• Difficulty in creating a business climate
  conducive to investment, jobs and sustainable
  growth due to political instability
  
• Poor quality of social statistics, weak data
  compilation and dissemination methods
  
• Poor management of funds and programmes due to
  weak skills of staff
  
• Continued political instability and conflict in
  the region (Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine) leads to
  large allocation of budget to militarization
  
• Haphazard budget allocation and poor coordination
  among government institutions and stakeholders in
  the disbursement of funds
  
• Weak or over regulated role of civil society
• Weak role of the media
• Substitution of role of the state by other groups
  such as fundamentalist organizations and partisan
  groups due to poor social service delivery
  
• Poor adoption of international declarations

25
Promoting national-level policy practice
The Case of Bahrain

• Activities to enhance the policy practice are
  ongoing, so far the following
  
• activities have been undertaken in Bahrain since
  the MOU was signed with the
  
• Ministry of Social Development in 2005
• Enhancing a participatory approach to integrated
  social policy National Conference in Bahrain.
  
• Institutionalizing integrated social policy
  Establishment of the Social Policy Unit to
  provide periodic reports to the Council of
  Ministers, the Social Affairs Ministry and other
  stakeholders as well as setting up an information
  Database to collect social development related
  information.
• Capacity building in the design and
  implementation of comprehensive social policy was
  undertaken - Orientation Workshop on Social Policy

26
Orienting stakeholders to achieve policy success

• The two-day workshop, Orientation to Social
  Policy, held in Manama,
  
• Bahrain (December 20-21, 2006) included staff
  members of the Social Policy
  
• Unit at the Ministry of Social Development, other
  divisions at the Ministry,
  
• government officials and representatives local
  NGOs. The two-day workshop
  
• addressed several issues
• concepts and objectives of social policy
• designing and implementing social policy
• social policy analysis
• the role of the Social Policy Unit at the
  Bahraini Ministry of Social Development
  
• delineating the role of various stakeholders in
  the policy process
  
• importance of social indicators, monitoring and
  evaluation
  
• identifying the coordination mechanisms
• lobbying and advocacy techniques

27
The timing is right!

• The interesting feature of regional initiatives
• Snow ball effect
• Peer Coordination and Emulation
• Pick up a good concrete example and make it
  happen
  
• Scaling up and institute standards and references

28
THANK YOU Social Development Division ESCWA