Arab States

Millennium Development Goals- Arab States

In 2004, the region devoted 26% of its resources to MDG reporting and poverty monitoring. The highest expenditure was in support of local poverty initiatives receiving 45% of the resources (81% in 3 crisis countries: Iraq, Sudan and Somalia). Gender mainstreaming, on the other hand received, only 0.5% of the resources.

Significant progress was made in Algeria in the areas of poverty mapping, poverty measurement, and survey of living conditions. A national poverty line was defined for the first time in Syria, in addition to poverty maps and diagnostics studies. In Iraq an assessment of living conditions covering 22,000 households was conducted, and in Jordan areas with potential socio-economic problems were identified. 

Efforts have also been made to enhance the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) in poverty advocacy and monitoring on the country level, including workshops for Journalists in Iraq, workshops for human rights societies in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and training CSOs in UAE, Sudan and Algeria. In Lebanon an NGO Resource Center became fully operation in 2004. In addition to trainings and workshops, Jordan and Bahrain’s National Youth Strategies have been developed to tackle issues of education, labor and globalization. 

In Egypt a national dialogue on the National Micro-Finance Strategy led to an SME competitiveness study, where 2626 temporary and 536 permanent jobs were created through the services for micro, small and medium sized enterprises. In Yemen, Syria and Algeria efforts have been exerted to strengthen micro-finance where in Algeria a national agency to manage micro-credit was established and in Syria, draft legislation for the management of micro-finance programmes was formulated.

National MDG Reports (MDGRs) were produced in a total of eight Arab countries including Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. National Human Development Reports were also produced in Egypt, Syria, Djibouti, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar in 2004.

With respect to gender mainstreaming, ten targets were adopted in 2004 by a total of seven Arab countries, revolving around empowering women to participate in policy debates on poverty, and promoting sex-disaggregated statistics and reporting.

All RBAS country offices have also developed action plans to take full benefit of the Integrated Package of Services  (IPS) to support national MDG based poverty reduction strategies and advance the MDGs agenda at the local and national levels.