Statement issued by the Arab NGO Network for Development to G8 Summit

 

 

The G8 countries should recognize that peace and security in the Arab region are prerequisites for the promotion of democracy and social justice. It is obvious that any solution in the Middle East should not neglect the need to establish a just and sustainable peace based on the respect of human rights and international laws and conventions.

 
A regional strategy for peace building should be based on the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian as well as of the Iraqi people to live in independent and sovereign states and to enjoy social justice and development within the framework of democratic regimes.

 
Double standards in the implementation of international laws and resolutions, in addition to the promotion of the war on terror, are major factors destabilizing the region and generating violence and terrorism. Thus this strategy should be revised by the leaders of the G8 countries convening in Heligendamm- Germany.

 
On the process of democratization and reform in the Middle East

 

-               The Forum for the Future has been an annual meeting initiated by the BMENA initiative, the G8 industrialized nations, and countries of the region. The Forum promotes itself as one response to what the UN Arab Human Development Reports have described as the region’s lack of democratic freedom, closed economic systems, education deficits, and limitation on women’s participation. Three forums have taken place in Morocco (2004), Bahrain (2005) and Jordan (2006), while the fourth one is expected to take place in Yemen (2007).

 -            This process has so far produced mixed results. Indeed, many civil society organizations in the region perceive this initiative as a tool used by Arab governments to work on a façade-like reform process that would maintain their grip on power. In fact, the process has been inconsistent- it is limited to a gathering of foreign affairs ministers of the involved countries at the annual meetings of the Forum. It is often aligned with meetings of finance ministers negotiating further trade liberalization agreements. It is unclear how issues of development and democratization are constructively addressed given that the perspectives of major social and political ministerial departments at not integrated in the process.

 

-                The US State Department Sean McCormack said on November 3, 2005, that a big part of the Forum for the Future is to “create a stable lasting mechanism where civil society groups from across the region can come together.” Concrete political actions in this sense are still to be seen. Indeed, the process is often opened to only selected civil society organizations, and the participation of civil society groups is limited to attending the forum while not being part of the decision-making process at the national levels.  .

 

-                Major reports still underline the failure of Arab countries to address the basic socio-economic and political rights of Arab citizens. This idea was clearly reflected during the Forum for the Future 2006 held in Jordan, whereby a parallel civil society meeting’s final recommendations included the same demands raised since the first forum of the future meeting held in Rabat in 2004. This example reveals the incapacity of the process of the Forum for the Future to deliver any progress in line with its initial message.

 

-                When compared to the final statement of the government sponsored Forum for the Future meeting, the proposals of the parallel civil society meeting were much deeper, targeted, and built on a stronger vision of reform. The demands ranged from calls to removal of emergency laws, right to freely form civil society associations and eliminating the right to ban the latter whenever “special cases” arise, equality before the law, political pluralism, independent media and judiciary, constitutional frameworks to protect media, creating freely new political parties, enhancing civil society’s role in monitoring, and building the political and economic capacity for women and youth, including enacting the CEDAW convention, reviewing and amending laws regarding women, and supporting small businesses for women by creating a women’s fund. Unfortunately though, the recommendations of the parallel civil society meeting failed to encompass socio-economic demands, which should be stressed as a core track to any reform process in the region, and should encompass policy options that are not solely limited to free-market economic approaches and trade liberalization initiatives.

 

-                Three points are paramount to consider in this process:

1.        There is a need to revise the objectives of the Forum, taking into consideration that policies promoted by G8 member countries in the region often come in contradiction with the objectives promoted by the Forum for the Future. This is especially obvious where trade liberalization and market policies are pushed. Moreover, democratic reforms should not be only reduced to political reforms but should encompass social and economic reforms as well

2.        The Forum for the Future should invest towards creating a sense of ownership of the process-- not only at the governmental level, but also at the business and civil society actors who are main partners in the reform process in the Arab region

3.        The full engagement of civil society in the process is not supposed to be limited to the invitation to address the annual forum. Indeed, civil society organizations are allowed to take part in the Forum for the Future through several tracks (Dialogue for democracy, Human Rights, Transparency, the Participation of Woman, etc), but are not given the opportunity to fully and actively participate, monitor the process, and set the much needed follow-up and evaluation mechanisms

 

On the climate change issue and sustainable development

 

-                After the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio, the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles has put climate change at the center of discussions by rich industrialized countries' heads of states and government. It is well known today that global warming is an outcome of human activities rather than natural disaster. Without serious and immediate action from the developed world all countries will be ultimately affected, including the rich countries themselves. This was reiterated in the latest report on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007).

 

-                Environmental policies are highly related to human development; integrating environment as a crosscutting issue in social policies is a useful indication of how well the linkages between environment and achieving poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods are recognised and acted upon towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In this regards, climate change becomes an issue of global justice where everyone has a responsibility to take measures to stop global warming.

 

-                The G8 countries bear particular responsibility as a major source of carbon emissions. Poor people and poor countries will in many cases be the first, and worst, affected by climate change, while having done least to bring it about. Because of the devastating effects that global warming policies will have on economic growth, the Kyoto treaty currently excludes developing nations. The G8 should reach collective commitment to reduce their own carbon emissions by 80% from their 1990 levels by 2050. Binding agreements must be made to keep global warming at less than 2 degrees, which requires stabilization at 450 ppm CO2 equivalent or below, in line with EU policy and scientific projections.

 

-                The Arab region, where most of the oil production and reserves of the world abide, have been put under high levels of environmental degradation. It is well-known that the energy sector has played and will continue to play an important role globally as well as within the Arab region. It is serving as the source of oil and gas export revenues and satisfying energy needs for economic and social development, especially in the Gulf region. However, several challenges are facing the sector in achieving the objectives of energy for sustainable development in the region. This include the rapidly increasing energy demand, lack of reliable energy supplies in rural and urban poor areas, the need to improve energy production and consumption efficiencies, limited support for renewable energy development, and lack of appropriate mechanisms to support transfer of advanced energy technologies to the region.

 

-                Despite a significant increase in environmental commitments by Arab countries over the past three decades, the national and regional institutions established to manage the sustainable development process remain largely inadequate. Until today, 18 Arab countries have ratified or accessed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), only Egypt has ratified the Kyoto protocol, and 12 other Arab countries have accessed it.

 

-                Efforts are being exerted by countries of the Arab region towards mitigating climate change. However, these efforts need to be supported by the international community through real actions that support Arab countries in their efforts to establish institutional capacities in the field of climate change; transfer environment-friendly technologies to the region, support regional collaboration on climate change control and mitigation strategies, and assisting them in joining the international efforts in this respect. Bilateral and multilateral donor organizations are mandated to facilitate the transfer of climate-friendly technologies to Arab countries.

 

-                The situation in the Arab region has worsened as the demand for oil production increases while clean energy sources are neglected. As the demand for clean energy increase and more investment accrues in this area, the potential for expanding sustainable resource use, cleaner, efficient and alternative renewable energy technologies in the region will increase. This should be based on a new kind of cooperation between developed countries and oil-producing countries, sound global energy policies, and practical movement on what Chancellor Merkel reflected upon during her keynote speech at the Davos World Economic Forum 2007, stating that "We want to supply impulses for climate protection, greater energy efficiency and increased security of supply.”

 

-                Plans addressing climate change and processes of sustainable development should be preserved at a multilateral process, which are led through multilateral bodies such as the United Nations. They should not become unilateral processes promoted by one country or a group of countries based on limited visions and interests. In this respect, the most recent proposition by President George Bush for “a long-term global goal” for cutting greenhouse gas emissions one week ahead of the G8 summit must work collaboratively within the existing UN framework, to ensure the best possible outcome. Furthermore, all countries, and not only core group of 13 countries, must be involved in negotiations on climate change, including the poorest, as they are the most vulnerable to the likely impacts.

 

On the push for trade liberalization in the Arab region:

 

-                On January 25, 2007, The Globe and Mail reported that Chancellor Merkel stated to the World Economic Forum in Davos that “free trade is an essential condition for economic growth in rich and poor nations." Moreover, on December 1, 2006, in an interview with Guardian Unlimited, Wolfgang Ischinger, German Ambassador to the UK, stated that "In the G8 we will do our best to remind everyone…that…the question of employment, the question of growth, the question of stability, the question of how best to confront the challenges of globalization, including new issues such as energy and climate change, will be very high on our agenda."

 

-                Yet, economic growth cannot serve the purposes of employment, sustainable development, and social equality without active policy processes from the side of governments to secure fair redistribution and avoid uncalculated crisis while securing a sustained growth rate and adequate address of social needs of various local communities. Developing countries need to be free to use trade and investment policies to promote food security, rural livelihoods, and future industrial development.   Trade policies should integrate achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Accordingly, the aim should not be to liberalize trade but to set trade policies that secure social, economic, and cultural rights for all.

 

-                G8 member countries, including EU States (Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom) in addition to the US have active free trade initiatives in the region. The EU through the European Neighborhood Policy is working towards a free trade zone with the Middle Eastern countries by 2010. The US, through aggressive bilateral free trade agreements aims for a free trade zone by the year 2013.

 

-                These initiatives are putting high burdens on Arab countries on the institutional, economic, social, as well as political levels. The agreements, which are clearly WTO-plus agreements, are stripping Arab countries from the required policy space for them to serve development objectives.

 

-                In that regards, we stress the need to:

 

1.        Consider the Southern regional integration processes, including Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) among Arab countries as a priority; these processes should be given enough time to accrue and should not be hindered by hasty and poorly studied decisions of liberalization with northern countries.

 

2.       Sustainability impact assessments need to be carried out before any FTAs are signed. Moreover, the results of the trade sustainability impact assessments that have been done, such as the study commissioned by the EU Commission, should present the basis for reforming the partnership agreement and its mechanisms and not deepening the trade liberalization commitments. The aforementioned EU assessment showed that on the short and medium terms, Southern Mediterranean Partner countries will be negatively impacted in regards to employment, average wages, and government spending on social services, among others. Any new propositions should work towards addressing these challenges.

 

3.        In any trade agreement, it should be acknowledgment that many Arab partner countries are not ready to accept the process of normalization with Israel through trade agreements. Their reluctance is rooted in rejection of a normalization process that is independent of the political process of negotiations towards a just and fair solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is based on full recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to have their own independent state.

 

On Aid and Debts:

 

-                Despite the fact that the G8 signed up to firm commitments to increase overseas development aid (ODA) by an extra $50 billion by 2010, recent ODA figures show that in actual fact, aid by rich countries is falling - by 5% last year. Even the World Bank, which usually takes the donors’ point of view, recently acknowledged that except for debt cancellation, “promises of scaled up aid have not been delivered.” At the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland it was agreed that 0.7% of national income would be made available in effective aid. The G8 heads of state should now be bound to timetables for delivery of this aid and show leadership in the donor community. 

 

-                The Arab region remains heavily reliant on official development assistance, especially the least developed countries in the region. However, in the Arab region, aid flows have been overly politicized; ODA is highly concentrated in a few middle income countries, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan. Moreover, it is quite odd that least developed countries in the Arab region have consistently received less aid than the regional average, at least in terms of aid per capita.

 

-                Yet, ODA will continue to play an important role in financing development in the Arab region, especially with least developed and highly indebted countries. For that reason, policy behind allocation of aid and the quality of aid delivered should be addressed in a more development-oriented process, and not solely based on political considerations linked to normalization with Israel. The experience showed that the decision to stop the aid flows to the Palestinian authorities in reaction to the result of the free and democratic elections in 2005 is an obvious example of how aid can be used as a tool to collectively punish a people. Results were catastrophic not only at the social, economic, and humanitarian levels, but also at the political process.

 

-                On debt relief, the richest countries have fallen short as well. While the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative is a positive example of the G8 doing what it said it would in 2005, debt cancellation is needed for a much larger group of countries that continue to face heavy debt burdens, including countries in the Arab region. It should be taken into consideration that the sustainability and repayment capacity of developing countries’ debt might be compromised by the negative impact of trade liberalization on governments’ revenues, whereby liberalization means reducing trade related taxes. Moreover, debt cancellation and military aid should not be considered as ODA.