meagre results of investments of billions of dollars by the World Bank and various other multilateral and bilateral aid agencies attest.
To enhance the effectiveness of assistance to Arab education it is vital that projects be based on clear understandings of impediments imposed by Arab political economies, coupled with strategies to overcome them. This is the
message of The Political Economy of
Education in the Arab World, published in March 2021 and including analyses by numerous experts. They agree that effective support of educational reforms is difficult but possible so long as remedies are not confined to technical fixes but address systemic deficiencies. Linkages between education and employment should also be tightened. Other interventions targeted at Arab youths can also contribute to improving their life chances and performance, so presumably also their sense of fulfillment and dignity.
But to be effective such remedial measures must be complemented by foreign policies of supportive external actors that signal awareness and concern for the welfare of Arab populations. Indeed, they should condition their broader assistance on such criteria. If Arabs believe that outsiders want their lives to be improved it will not only help them do so at a personal level, it will also provide them with leverage against domestic forces and actors that currently block reform. The overemphasis by the Great Powers of security assistance conveys a message not of concern for Arab populations, but of those Powers pursuing their own interests in tandem with those of authoritarian Arab governments rather than with their peoples.
The present wide and seemingly unbridgeable gap between Arab states and their societies
poses a dilemma for democratic Great Powers.
The incoming Biden Administration, for
example, faces a host of security issues in the
region that are likely to displace concern for the welfare of Arab populations. Indeed, its responses are likely to run counter to that
welfare, as were most of those of its predecessors. For the long-term interests of the region as well as those of external actors
heavily engaged in it, such as the U.S., it is vital that national security concerns be balanced by attention to the factors that give rise to the dignity deficit that contributes to the region’s chronic insecurity, instability, and underperformance. Dealing primarily at tactical levels with security challenges will only exacerbate the existing gap between states and their societies.
Upgrading the visibility, policy centrality and financing of foreign assistance would be appropriate steps to signal a rebalancing of U.S. policy toward Arab citizens’ welfare, away from repressive states and their coercive agencies. The obvious way to do this would be to restore autonomy from the State Department of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as its status as a cabinet level department, thus re-stablishing the status quo prior to its downgrading that commenced during the Clinton Administration. The higher profile, more robust and repurposed USAID should be officially tasked with contributing to the empowerment of citizens and improvement of their life prospects and performance. While this would not be a cure-all for the Arab dignity deficit, it would draw attention to it and contribute to exploration of ways and means to overcome it. Absent reduction of the deficit, it will continue to bedevil the region and those with interests in it, to say nothing of the problems of those suffering from it.
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For the long-term interests of the region as well as those of external actors heavily engaged in it, such as the U.S., it is vital that national security concerns be balanced by attention to the factors that give rise to the dignity deficit that contributes to the region’s chronic insecurity, instability, and underperformance.