February 7, 2005

Daily Star

Program for Mideast Reform Launched

by Rami G. Khouri

Relentlessly pressured to change their prevailing ways by demographic and economic forces at home and insistent Western governments, Arab countries and their civil societies Sunday launched a new initiative that seeks to explore yet another route towards effective and sustainable reform of their governance systems. The Arab states joined forces with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to officially launch the Initiative on Good Governance for Development in the Arab Countries.

They jointly issued a declaration which approved a three-year action plan that seeks to promote structural public sector governance reforms that have been frequently discussed but rarely implemented in the Arab world.

The ambitious program establishes Arab-OECD working groups for action in six areas: civil service and integrity; the role of the judiciary and the rule of law; e-government, administrative and regulatory reform; the role of the mass media and civil society in reforming the public sector; governance of public finance; and, public service delivery.

The core six Arab countries that worked to launch the initiative and that will co-chair the working groups are Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

The next steps include developing national plans of action in each Arab country, reflecting local priorities and capacities, while simultaneously sharing experiences among Arab states and also with OECD partners. The integrated, multi-sectoral, trans-regional and international dimensions of the initiative are the novelties that give participants a greater sense of optimism that this process will achieve more results than previous ones.

The Arab world has generated a veritable growth industry of unimplemented reform initiatives, plans and declarations in the past three years, culminating in the Arab League summit declaration in Tunis last summer and the subsequent G8-Arab joint declaration on reform imperatives in the broader Middle East.

This initiative is seen as building on the Arab League’s declaration to push for widespread governance and economic reforms.

Arab, UNDP and Western officials who have worked quietly for the past year to prepare this initiative say privately that it has a chance to succeed where other reform plans have stalled because of three main factors: its details have been jointly agreed by Arab and OECD officials; it established Arab and OECD co-chairs to head each of the six thematic working groups and to monitor implementation indicators; and it is an integrated approach that includes civil society, the private sector, and the media, while also drawing on experiences from other countries in the world who have successfully reformed their public sectors and economies.

Privately, Arab and Western participants here also say that the less politically aggressive or divisive nature of the OECD, as compared to the U.S., NATO or G8 potential partners, makes it more attractive for Arab governments to participate in this reform initiative.

“It’s a home-grown product that also benefits from partnership with the world,” Jordan’s Justice Minister and a key driving force behind the effort, Salah Eddin Beshir, told The Daily Star. He added that is it significant that all the Arab governments involved here joined the process voluntarily, partly, he suggests, because a sense of urgency for change is more apparent to most Arab governments.

“There’s a greater realization throughout the region that governance is about delivery. If you don’t deliver the goods to your people, there will be trouble. A full 25 percent of our populations are going to join the labor force in the coming decade and they need education, jobs, housing, services, and an ability to compete and excel in the global economy. We have no choice but to make government work better, and one reason we are here is to acknowledge the faults and start fixing them.”

The UNDP’s New York-based official who oversees programs in the Arab region, Nada al-Nashef, said in an interview that this is “above all an innovative and flexible partnership approach. For the first time we have succeeded in brokering Arab national leaderships and priorities with an international agenda, mediated through a regional umbrella. It’s the first time such a formula has been attempted and it’s a huge breakthrough for OECD diplomacy as well.”

The ideal outcome of this weekend’s gathering, officials say, is a set of commitments in specific projects. These in turn will be consolidated in an upcoming meeting in Spain through the working groups and the creation of national committees in each Arab country to secure further international and donor support.

The initiative’s estimated budget for the first three years is $17 million, to be funded jointly by Arab and international sources.

While enthusiasm for this initiative is high among the 300 participants here, so is a wary sense of realism that such promises have been made - and subsequently neglected - before. In the official statements today and in private discussions, this burden of low credibility is obvious.

Participants say however, that it is precisely the history of unimplemented plans and declarations that has pushed all concerned to devise this new strategy to reform the Arab public sectors through a combination of integrated sectoral agenda, trans-regional cooperation, and sharing experiences and monitoring work with partner governments in the OECD.

OECD Secretary General Donald Johnston noted in his remarks that “effective, efficient, fair and responsive government is essential for development” of any society, and that results can be achieved more by cooperation among nations than by countries acting on their own.

The OECD will provide support, technical assistance and international experiences in best practices, he said, but the challenge here is primarily one of “leadership and ownership” by the Arab states.”

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa for his part said that successful reform requires four key elements: political will, coherence between the public and the power elite, adequate funding, and government cooperation with the private sector, civil society and the mass media.