About 40% of the population in Arab countries, approximately 140 million people, live below the poverty line, according to a report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Arab League.
The report, entitled Development Challenges for the Arab Region: A Human Development Approach, said that "there was no reduction in poverty rates over the last 20 years" in the Arab World.
The document also emphasized the importance of youth unemployment, which represents "more than 50% of the unemployed population in most Arab countries." The Arab world has been found to have the highest rate of youth unemployment in the world.
The Arab countries will thus be faced with the challenge of creating 51 million new jobs over the next ten years, which would not reduce unemployment but "contribute to preventing its increase and maintaining it at current levels until 2020."
The report was drafted ahead of a world summit in September 2010, which is being held to mark the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the UN Millennium Development Goals, according to which the international community pledged to halve poverty and malnutrition by 2015.
The report emphasizes the need to increase food self-sufficiency in the Arab World — a goal far from being achieved despite the progress made in Sudan and Syria in cereals.
It advocates the establishment of a sort of "social contract" or "alliance for development" between the rich Arab oil producers and those where the economic situation is difficult to enable them to meet their daily necessities.
The report also calls for moving from a development model focusing on oil and raw materials to a development model more focused on reducing poverty and creating jobs.
End item/ 129
