Countries in the Arab States region remain trapped in a vicious cycle of low productivity, stagnant human development, and remain off the mark in terms of attainment of Sustainable Development Goals.

Economic growth in the region has been at a low level of three percent over the past decade characterized by low productivity levels and high volatility. This is due to several factors including the prevalence of rentier states, non-diversification of economies, small and largely informal private sector, combined with ineffective governance and weak institutions.

As a result, benefits of prosperity do not flow to many, with women remaining largely outside the economies with the lowest levels of female labor force participation in the world. New opportunities for youth are also not being created fast enough despite emergence of promising new areas such as the digital economy.

The outlook for the region does not look promising unless countries can transform this vicious cycle, into a virtuous one, where growth, combined with greater public expenditures in key social sectors, and SDG positive investments leading to new job rich growth can push the needle towards shared prosperity.

This will also be the best insurance for confronting the polycrisis with greater resilience, and a critical step towards conflict prevention and social coherence. We must act now to tackle structural weaknesses, strengthen institutions, promote robust growth and innovation for opening new opportunities that can extend prosperity to all people, with the SDGs as our compass.

But serious human development challenges are not confined to the Arab States region as UNDP’s latest Human Development Report (HDR) 2023-2024, which summarizes  the state of development globally, and the challenges we face today, tells us.

The report shows that global recovery remains unequal following the unprecedented downturn of 5-6 years of development progress being reversed due to the pandemic and losses in the Human Development Index (HDI) across 90 percent of countries.

While all OECD countries have made up the losses since 2019 and the HDI has rebounded and reached a global record in 2023, more than half the Least Developed Countries have not recovered. The overall development trajectory has been lowered and the world continues to lag in the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with only 15 percent of targets realized.

Growing inequalities are fueled by our new reality of polycrisis due to a multitude of shocks – pandemics, climate change impacts, natural disasters, economic shocks and conflicts.

But that global human development gridlock is breakable.

And in charting a way forward for international cooperation to help break it and put our common pursuit of the SDGs back on track, the HDR could not have agreed more with themes of the Islamic Development Bank’s (IsDB) Golden Jubilee: originality, solidarity, and prosperity.

Solidarity

The report argue that today’s world is more interconnected than ever and shared challenges, including climate change, pandemics, and economic shocks, can only be solved by investing in global public goods and enhancing global cooperation.

National security paradigms need to evolve. We must embrace a shared sense of security, going beyond conventional approaches of arms buildup and erecting barriers. We need to reinforce multilateralism to solve common problems, not only in global arenas but at the regional and national levels to reinforce trust.

Originality

The report calls for fresh thinking to enable people to feel secure, empowered and in charge of their life. People’s voice and engagement in setting shared goals can help stem rising tides of polarization and populism that are eroding trust worldwide.

Public budgets must better target the aims of the SDGs, employing tools that has proven effective such as the Integrated National Financing Frameworks to boost public social expenditure on education, health care, energy, and food security, and expand social protection systems to include the most vulnerable. And, amid worsening conflicts we need heightened levels of innovation, and investment to address the massive needs of recovery and rehabilitation of those displaced by conflict.

Prosperity

The world today is collectively wealthier than ever before. The report calls for devising concrete avenues to tap the record levels of wealth in the global economy to invest in global public goods to reverse increasing inequalities and achieve shared prosperity for all.

This requires a deliberate transition from funding to financing and greater ambition for leveraging all types of financing – domestic and international, public and private – to meet the volume of resources needed for transformative chang —beyond few well-meaning but fragmented projects, which will not make a real difference given the vast needs and complex challenges, especially in post-conflict recovery.

The IsDB has a unique role to play in bringing catalytic financing towards advancing development where it is most needed and will find in UNDP an able and willing partner with feet on the ground in some of the most challenging places. 

As the IsDB celebrates 50 years, UNDP offers its congratulations and stands ready to strengthen collaboration to deliver on our mutual objectives to advance the attainment of the SDGs, and address recovery in crisis settings ensuring that no place is left behind.