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Sponsored by the United Nations and written by a
group of leading Arab intellectuals, the third Arab Human Development
Report says that Arab governments have failed to meet their peoples’
aspirations for development, security, and liberation. To rectify these
failures, the report calls for speeding up democratic reforms - in
particular, reforms aimed at strengthening the institutional
foundations of freedom, limiting the monopoly on power currently
enjoyed by the executive in most Arab countries, and ensuring an
independent judiciary and free speech. The report also criticizes U.S. foreign policy with regard to Iraq
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher says that the U.S. views the report positively, while
not sharing all of its conclusions: "I'm not going to pretend that we embrace everything in this report,
but when it sticks to the job at hand, and that's to try to diagnose
and identify the impediments to development in the Arab world and the
things that can and should be done in the Arab world in terms of reform
and change. . . .we think these reports have made a very important
contribution and we look forward to reviewing this one in that regard."
Despite disagreements, the authors of the Arab Human Development
Report and the United States agree that Arab countries need democracy.
"The advance of hope in the Middle East requires new thinking in the
region," said President George W. Bush. "By now it should be clear that
authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future. It is the last gasp
of a discredited past." The Arab Human Development Report also suggests the consequences for
Arab governments of failing to act now. "In the absence of peaceful and
effective mechanisms to address injustice and achieve political
alternation, some might be tempted to embrace violent protest, with the
risk of internal disorder,” the report warns. "This could lead to
chaotic upheavals that might force a transfer of power in Arab
countries. . . .Such a transfer of power through violence would not
guarantee that successor governance regimes would be any more
desirable." The first Arab Human Development Report, issued in 2002, described
obstacles to development in the Middle East, including deficits of
freedom and women's empowerment. The second report provided an in-depth
assessment of the knowledge deficit. These reports provided much of the
framework for the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative. The preceding was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States government.
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