Will the Arab Region Build Up Sufficient Resilience Before the Next Youth Explosion?

About

This Article by Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj is informed by our consultant’s work on a research and policy project commissioned in 2018 by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA) to examine conflicts in the Arab region and forecast future scenarios for development in the region.  The research project is being reviewed and updated for a forthcoming paper to be published this year.  

Some countries managed to avoid the crisis by borrowing money and spending on enhanced consumption to ease the burden of the crisis on their citizens, but for many countries the state’s move to contain the situation was too little too late. Most countries in the region saw their fiscal space dedicated to development shrinking as a result. The “Arab Spring” created a conflict eco-system in the region. The region hosts the highest levels of displaced persons in the world, it succumbs to the direst environmental impacts of global warming and climate change and has some of the highest corruption levels and elite grab on power in the world. Conflict drivers operate on three interlocking scales: local, national, and regional. Conflict drivers are not the same for all countries, but they are part of an eco-system where stability of one country is incumbent on the stability of others. While some countries managed to waver the first “Arab Spring”, the region has diverted a larger percentage of its income to militarization; regional stabilization factors such as intra-regional trade and FDI’s are declining; and environmental factors like water shortages are exacerbated. Meanwhile a new youth bulge is looming on the horizon starting in 2028-2029. 

Local, national, and regional factors are interconnected and feed onto each other. The surge of another youth bulge will bring the conditions of the regions to the brink of collapse within the horizon of 2030. The 8 most interconnected conflict drivers can be quantified and a general stability indicator for the region shows where things are heading should the status quo on regional tensions and conflicts remain unresolved. Resilience of most Arab countries has not recovered, and the regional opportunities to heal fast before the next crisis are dim. The next explosion of youth in the region is likely to irrupt in much poorer cities, living under more corrupt elite dominated governance systems, with little absorption capacity of most Arab States to absorb further debt, and with radicalization and the emergence of non-state actors being the main channel of attracting disgruntled youth. The results will be catastrophic not only for the region, but on a global scale. 

To avoid this scenario, regional actors need to move quickly. Three key interventions are needed:

1. De-escalate regional conflicts among the largest protagonists in the region. But also work to bring the different proxy wars being fought through non-state actors in the different regional civil wars to a reasonable end. This requires global and regional State actors to establish political-security understandings that serves stability and facilitates national transitions towards peace and development.  

2. The State actors in the region need to build an effective intra-regional economic-security cooperation framework to reduce the prospects of future conflicts and deal with the generational ramifications of the current ones.

3. Shift a reasonable share of the region’s resources from non-productive sectors towards investment in productive developmental sectors.  The region needs to sustain a 5% GDP growth every year, and channel that growth to tangible developmental results. This will also entail diverting military spending towards development funding, debt relief for the weaker economies and developing cross regional value chains to lift the war-torn economies and create opportunities for inclusive reconstruction. 

4. The above cannot happen without a dramatic improvement in good governance, in particular as regards rule of law and government effectiveness. The region needs to develop better accountability frameworks and allow for the youth to engage in the public sphere in a constructive manner.

These changes are on the horizon of some of the regional actors today, but the speed and depth of the transformation needs more rigor. Cosmetic gestures will not avoid the next regional crisis looming in the very foreseeable future. The next crisis will go beyond the events of 2011, and will have profound global ramifications.  

Related Projects

Header Photo

Protests against lack of reforms and deterioration of living standards, a month before the explosion of the port of Beirut.  Lebanon. July 7th 2020.  Photo © Simon Haddad - via ShutterStock.  Link >

Back To Commentary >