MDGs and poverty in the Arab countries

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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
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Part oneMDGs, General considerations
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Part twoMDGs based strategy
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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)
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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)

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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)

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Part threeAbout poverty measurement
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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)

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Available data by source
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Global sources Poverty Incidence ()1/day- -
By Sub-Region
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MDGRsPoverty incidence 1/day by sub-region
2000
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Global sources Poverty Incidence ()2/day- -
By Sub-Region
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Global Sources HPI () - By Sub-Region
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Global Sources HPI () - By Country
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Global sources Poverty Incidences ()- By
Sub-Region
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MGDrsPoverty Incidence () - 1/day- By country
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MDGRsNational PL by country 2000
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MDGRsNational PL by sub-region 2000
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MDGRsNational PL Trend by sub-region
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MDGRsNational PL Trend by country
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Global sourcesUnder 5 Underweight 99/03
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Global sourcesUnder 5 Underweight - trend
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Global sourcesUnder 5 Underweight by country
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Global sourcesMalnourished population ()- by
sub-region
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Global sourcesMalnourished population ()- tend
by sub-region
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Global sourcesMalnourished population ()- by
country
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Part three Tailoring targets and selecting
indicators(Highlights)
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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.

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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.

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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.