Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

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Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals middle-income countries with a moderate urgency, an advanced level of capacities, and an intermediate disposition to solve the existing problems. In addition, it is more than difficult to see why Mauritania, a low-income country, should not have the status of a priority partner country. There may be good reasons for this. But if there are, they cannot be derived from the MDG agenda. In the name of transparency these reasons should therefore be named in the BMZ’s strategy papers. Otherwise the intensive German engagement in Egypt and Morocco should be reviewed once again, and Mauritania should be given consideration as a priority partner country. It is e.g. conceivable that Egypt should be given generous support because of the key role it plays for the stability of the Middle East. Morocco and Tunisia in turn must likewise be seen as important partner countries for the simple reason that year for year large numbers of refugees depart from their shores for Europe. These may all be reasons to engage in especially intensive DC with them. Yet all this has at best very little to do with the MDGs and the BMZ should frankly confess to such considerations 6.2 Sectoral orientation of bilateral German DC The rough sectoral orientation of German DC with the MENA region is compatible with the MDG agenda. The current priorities of German DC are entirely congruent with the priority needs of the MENA countries in pursuing the MDGs. However, German DC might consider intensifying its engagement in three sectors in which the solution of problems is at least equally urgent (GTZ 2003, 6, 8). This would be support for – democracy promotion and improvements in governance; – social, economic, political, and legal equality for women; and – improved quality of schooling in the region. In these three sectors nearly all of the MENA countries have – if at all – made no more than insufficient progress in implementing the MDGs. According to the Arab Development Reports, these three sectors must be seen as the central bottlenecks for development in the region (AFESD / UNDP 2002; AFESD / UNDP 2003; AFESD / UNDP 2004). German Development Institute 153
154 Markus Loewe A recent IMF working paper 13 also comes to the conclusion that higher expenditure for education and governance reforms is at once essential for the implementation of MDG2 and MDG8 and the most effective and efficient approach that can be used to (i) accelerate economic growth, (ii) to alleviate income poverty and hunger, (iii) to contribute to gender equality (MDG3), and (iv) to reduce child mortality rates (MDG4). Improving political and economic governance in the MENA countries is especially urgent (GTZ 2003, 5 f.). According to IMF calculations, qualitative differences in the institutional framework can explain almost three quarters of the income differentials between the developing countries (Bundesregierung 2004, 34). But it would also be important to improve the quality of schooling in the MENA countries. It is the kind of education they receive (and not the number of school years completed) that determines whether and to what extent school graduates will be able to make use of their education. It is only education designed to teach children to learn on their own, to think critically, and to develop their creative skills that enables them to take charge of their own lives, to process information adequately, and to take a hand in shaping the political, economic, cultural, and technological development of their country (AFESD / UNDP 2003; Weiss 2004b, 5). Any more intensive commitment of DC to gender equality should not consist of women’s-promotion measures that are simply added on to existing projects or programs (e.g. in the sectors education, microfinance, SME promotion). This must instead be seen as a cross-cutting task. As early as in the planning phase of DC projects it is important to factor in potential impacts on gender relations. It should never be assumed a priori that a given DC measure is gender-neutral. Women can always be promoted or disadvantaged by a given measure as such, and in the formulation of mea- 13 The authors of the paper (Baldacci et al. 2004) present the results of a regression analysis based on panel data on 120 developing countries, and they look into the direct and indirect effects of five possible government interventions: (i) an increase of spending for education amounting to 1% of GDP, (ii) an equal rise in spending for health, (iii) a reduction of government spending equivalent to 1% of GDP, (iv) a 10 % reduction of the inflation rate, and (v) significant improvement of performance on the governance indicators. The dependent variable used in the model included in particular (a) level of economic growth, (b) the proportion income-poor persons among the population, (c) school enrolment rates for boys and girls, and (d) the child mortality rate. German Development Institute
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Middle East / North Africa and the
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Studies Deutsches Institut für Ent
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Foreword This study is the English
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Contents Abbreviations Executive Su
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Bibliography 163 List of Interview
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Figure 15: Trends in the implementa
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Table A15: Commitment of the govern
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GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tech
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UN HABITAT United Nations Human Set
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Page 199 and 200: Markus Loewe Schüler, D. / S. Klas
Page 201 and 202: Markus Loewe - (2004a): Human Devel
Page 203 and 204: Markus Loewe - (2004g): Kingdom of
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Berichte und Gutachten 11/04 Scholz
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Discussion Paper 16/2006 Brüntrup,
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