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MDGs and poverty in the Arab countries

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Title: MDGs and poverty in the Arab countries


1
MDGs and poverty in the Arab countries
Poverty CoP Tunisia 17 June 2005 Prepared by
Adib Nehmeh Sub-regional Resource Facility for
Arab States SURF-AS UNDP
2
Part oneMDGs, General considerations
3
Two directional relationship
  • MDGs are a strong political and advocacy tool.
    Donors countries use it as a criteria to allocate
    their international aid to developing counties.
    The latter and the international community can
    also use them in the other direction to monitor
    the commitment of donors, and the compatibility
    of international policies with MDGs.
  • This relationship must not be limited to aids
    MDGs must be used as a tool to assess
    international policies and as a tool for
    multilateral and bilateral negotiations.

4
Are MDGS adequate to measure development?
  • The choice of MDGs and their indicators reflects
    the priority given to LDCs by international
    community. Their needs represented the most
    urgent global priorities, and were intensively
    present when identifying MDGs. Thats why many
    countries of intermediate level of development
    felt that MDGs does not adequately reflect their
    national development context.
  • Although this feeling is justified, it does not
    mean that MDGs are completely irrelevant. It
    rather means that these countries have to deal
    with them in a different way.

5
From national targets to national strategy.
  • MDGs do not constitute on their one a sufficient
    tool for formulating national policies. They are
    rather instrument for international comparison,
    and defining general goals and priorities.
  • Regional and national actors have to formulate
    correspondent regional and national targets, and
    translate them into development strategies, plans
    of action, and projects.
  • Intraregional cooperation plays a major role in
    reaching MDGs, and so the tripartite partnership
    between government, civil society and private
    sector at the national level.

6
About recipes
  • MDGs are not recipes.
  • Dealing smartly with MDGs Goals, Targets
    Indicators, and uncovering their specific
    significance for a specific national context, is
    a necessary to identify priorities an design
    interventions properly.

7
Part twoMDGs based strategy
8
MDG policy planningCore principles
  • Nationally Owned
  • Demand-Based
  • Coordinated at the country level
  • Evidence-Based
  • Outcome-Based
  • In fragile states and post-crisis countries,
    this approach will be adapted to the local
    institutional situation to promote stability.

9
MDGs based strategy
  • The MDGs are long-term objectives that need to be
    embodied in the strategic priorities for national
    development.
  • The alignment of the countrys strategic plan
    with the MDG agenda involves one methodological
    and four practical steps only one relates to MDG
    costing and foreign aid.

10
The 5 steps
  • 1-Setting a vision where to situate MDGs vis a
    vis the national development strategy.
  • 2- Tailoring the global targets to make them
    context-sensitive.
  • 3- Setting intermediate targets for political
    accountability.
  • 4- Translating the targets into specific programs
    and policies for the next 2-3 years.
  • 5- Costing these programs and policies to inform
    the annual budget and aid negotiations.

11
Step one Setting a visionGeneral framework or
priorities?
  • For LDCs, where poverty incidence is high, and
    education and health indicators and basic
    development are low, MDGs can constitute the
    general framework for a national development
    strategy.
  • For intermediate level countries, MDGs represent
    an efficient tool to identify priorities within
    the national development strategy, especially the
    eradication of pockets of extreme poverty,
    narrowing the regional or social disparities
    regarding basic development indicators,
    addressing environmental problems, and adopting
    efficient pro-poor macro-economic policies.

12
Step two Tailoring the global targets.
  • Setting meaningful targets requires adaptation,
    not mindless adoption of global targets.
  • The global targets were set on the premise that
    global progress observed over the past 25 years
    would continue for the next 25 years.
  • The question whether we are on-track to meeting
    the MDGs by 2015 is valid only at the global
    level. It cannot be asked for any specific region
    or particular country. By using a uniform
    yardstick, several success stories will be
    reported as failures because they will not meet
    the global benchmark.
  • The fear that country-specific targets will
    undermine the global targets is unfounded.
  • (Quoted from a contribution by Jan Vandemoortele)

13
Step three Setting intermediate targets.
  • The MDG agenda must be linked to the political
    agenda of todays government. Targets for 2015
    are unlikely to register with the current
    political leaders because the deadline will not
    occur on their watch. Intermediate targets are
    needed to generate and sustain momentum at the
    country level, and to ensure political
    accountability.

(Quoted from a contribution by Jan Vandemoortele)
14
Step four Translate targets into 2-3 years
program
  • Actionable propositions and specific reforms over
    the next 2-3 years must be defined to realise the
    intermediate targets. They range from immunising
    children to iodising salt, training teachers and
    building schools, drilling boreholes and planting
    trees, treating HIV/Aids patients and
    distributing bed nets, enforcing laws against
    gender discrimination and child labour,
    abolishing user fees for basic social services,
    enlarging tax revenue in an equitable way,
    restructuring budgetary spending in favour of the
    poor, and sequencing home grown economic,
    financial and trade policies.
  • (Quoted from a contribution by Jan Vandemoortele)

15
Step five Costing to inform annual budget and
aid negotiations
  • The price tag of the MDGs will critically depend
    on strategic choices about pro-poor policies and
    the delivery of basic social services. Generic
    drugs, for instance, are less expensive than
    brand-name medicines day schools are less costly
    than boarding schools community-driven
    initiatives are less pricey than institutional
    approaches. Some interventions combine low cost
    with high impact. Each strategic choice has a
    different unit cost and a different cost
    function.
  • Selecting the appropriate options will typically
    reduce the cost of the MDG agenda. But only the
    national stakeholders can do so within the
    national context, and within the countrys own
    development strategy and its macroeconomic and
    sectoral policy frameworks. There cannot be an
    one-size-fits-all costing exercise.
  • (Quoted from a contribution by Jan Vandemoortele)

16
Part threeAbout poverty measurement
17
Low poverty incidence in AS
  • International reports state that the poverty
    incidence in the Arab region (measured at less
    than 1/day-ppp per capita) varies between 2.5
    and 3.5 of the total population. This is the
    lowest rate among all regions of the world.
  • Most experts, policy makers and concerned
    citizens are not convinced by this estimate.
  • This estimate sends the misleading message that
    the fight against poverty is not a developmental
    priority for the Arab states.

18
Because..
  • The 1/day measure is not relevant in general
    as a poverty measure or poverty line for most
    Arab countries that belong either to the high or
    medium development/income countries.
  • of population getting less than the minimum
    required daily calorie intake is higher than the
    of population living at less than 1/day, what
    means that the latter does not reflect extreme
    poverty which is closely related to hunger.

19
and because
  • When calculating the incidence of poverty
    according to a poverty line of 2/day per capita,
    the poverty figures rise dramatically from 2-3
    to 30 This increase givers raises serious
    questions about the relevance of the 1/day
    poverty line for the region.
  • There are very important discrepancies between
    Arab countries in terms of the level of income
    and development, and socio-economic status. Using
    the same poverty lines, the same tools and
    methodologies to measure poverty are not standing
    on a solid scientific basis. In this context,
    regional aggregates are very misleading, as they
    do not reflect the real situation individual
    countries.

20
International v/s national poverty lines
  • The international poverty line of 1/day is meant
    to facilitate international comparisons and for
    ranking purposes. It is not meant to be a
    substitute for national poverty lines, which are
    more relevant for orienting the establishment of
    national poverty or development policies.

21
Issues related to national poverty lines
  • Differences related to the definition of poverty
    (income poverty, human poverty).
  • Differences of approaches and methods
    statistical field survey, Participatory Poverty
    Study, etc.
  • Differences related to the definition and
    measurement of the national poverty lines
    absolute or relative poverty line based on
    income or expenditure what is the minimum
    calorie intake adopted what are the components
    of the food and non-food baskets of essential
    goods how many national or regional poverty line
    are going to be calculated?...
  • Problems related to the availability and quality
    of data Some data may be missing, or data series
    may be missing for certain years for some
    indicators

22
Regional comparison
  • The harmonization of the definitions of poverty,
    and measurement methodologies, and available
    statistical data is a precondition to make
    scientific and solid regional comparison.
  • Unfortunately this is not the case in the region.
    Regional aggregates and poverty comparison
    between countries on the bases of national
    poverty lines, must be handled very carefully.

23
Approach of Regional MDGR for Arab states
  • Despite these weaknesses, the use of national
    poverty lines is still more relevant option to
    prepare the regional MDGR. Two main principles
    were followed
  • The adoption of national poverty lines as stated
    in national MDGRs
  • The adoption of the division of the Arab
    countries into 4 sub-regions GCCs, Mashreq,
    Maghreb and LDCS.

24
Sub-regions of Arab states
  • The Arab leagues comprises 22 Arab countries. The
    regional MDGR proposes to classify them according
    to 4 sub-regions
  • GCCs Bahrain, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE Oman (6
    countries)
  • Mashreq Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria
    Lebanon (6 countries)
  • Maghreb Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia (4
    countries)
  • LDCs Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, Sudan,
    Somalia, Yemen (6 countries)

25
Available data by source
26
Global sources Poverty Incidence ()1/day- -
By Sub-Region
27
MDGRsPoverty incidence 1/day by sub-region
2000
28
Global sources Poverty Incidence ()2/day- -
By Sub-Region
29
Global Sources HPI () - By Sub-Region
30
Global Sources HPI () - By Country
31
Global sources Poverty Incidences ()- By
Sub-Region
32
MGDrsPoverty Incidence () - 1/day- By country
33
MDGRsNational PL by country 2000
34
MDGRsNational PL by sub-region 2000
35
MDGRsNational PL Trend by sub-region
36
MDGRsNational PL Trend by country
37
Global sourcesUnder 5 Underweight 99/03
38
Global sourcesUnder 5 Underweight - trend
39
Global sourcesUnder 5 Underweight by country
40
Global sourcesMalnourished population ()- by
sub-region
41
Global sourcesMalnourished population ()- tend
by sub-region
42
Global sourcesMalnourished population ()- by
country
43
Part three Tailoring targets and selecting
indicators(Highlights)
44
How we deal with Goal one?
  • Start by defining extreme poverty and poverty in
    your specific county taking into consideration
    the socio-economic characteristics
  • Look into the inter-linkages with other MDGs and
    targets,
  • Adapt the goal and targets to national context,
  • Set quantitative immediate and longer term
    targets
  • Select the relevant indicators.

45
Environment basic services
  • TARGET 10.HALVE BY 2015 THE PROPORTION OF PEOPLE
    WITHOUT SUSTAINABLE ACCESS TO SAFE DRINKING WATER
    AND SANITATION
  • Indicators
  • 30. Proportion of population with sustainable
    access to an improved water source, urban and
    rural
  • 31. Proportion of urban and rural population with
    access to improved sanitation
  • It is combined natural resource management,
    health and poverty issue.
  • The target can be revised according to national
    context. The normal situation is that any
    person must have access to water and sanitation
    as part of its basic rights. The quantitative
    target here is trying to set a realistic and
    achievable objective considering the global
    context.
  • In a country who have reached an acceptable level
    of development, and suffers from disparities and
    pockets of deprivation regarding these
    services/rights the national target might be to
    eradicate completely these pockets not halve
    them. The same logic applies to the time frame.

46
Environment slums and poverty?
  • TARGET 11. BY 2020 TO HAVE ACHIEVED A SIGNIFICANT
    IMPROVEMENT IN THE LIVES OF AT LEAST 100 MILLION
    SLUM DWELLERS
  • Indicators
  • 32. Proportion of households with access to
    secure tenure
  • This target is strongly linked to poverty. In
    fact its draw the attention to the following
  • Not to limit our definition to poverty to
    material basic needs, but to include rights and
    governance issues such as land tenure.
  • To include indicators on the immediate
    environment into the poverty measurement
    methodologies.
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