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

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Markus Loewe
in turn results in very low figures indicating that only a very low percentage
of the population is living in absolute poverty. The problem here is
that very poor households neither need gasoline (because they are without
cars) nor purchase heating oil or gas (because they cannot afford to heat
with gas or oil).
In a certain sense, every poverty line is arbitrary. This is illustrated by the
fact that the incomes of many people in the MENA region are only slightly
below or slightly above the one-dollar-per-day-line, and many are slightly
above the line in one year and below it in the next. Replacing the onedollar-line
with a two-dollar-line would therefore make one little sense. It
would appear more reasonable to use national poverty lines for identifying
poverty trends. These national lines are as a rule based on empirical studies
that indicate what income a national in fact needs to secure his or her
survival over the short or long term (Fair 2003; OECD/DAC 1998).
The drawback of national poverty lines is that it is not possible to calculate
average regional data based on them. Furthermore, while there are data
available for far more countries of the region indicating figures for income
poverty based on national criteria rather than on the one-dollar criterion,
this is, unfortunately, not the case for all countries of the region.
Still, based on the data available, we can state that the problem of income
poverty has shown an upward trend in the region. This is especially true
for Yemen, where national criteria indicate that in 1990 roughly 30 % of
the population were living in absolute income-poverty, and 42 % in 2000.
But the figures for other countries are also noteworthy: In Algeria the
share of income-poor by national criteria has risen from 12 % (1987) to
15 % (2000), in Iraq from 30 % (1987) to 45 % (2000), in Morocco from
17 % (1990) to 19 % (2000), and in the Palestinian Territories from 19 %
(1995) to 46 % (2000). The only countries in which, according to the figures
available, the share has declined are Egypt (1990: 25 %, 2000: 20 %),
Iran (1990: 26 %, 2000: 21 %), Mauritania (1995: 50 %, 2000: 46 %), and
Tunisia (1990: 7 %, 2000: 4 %). The data available for the other countries
in the region are either inadequate or unreliable (see Table A2, Annex).
Figure 1 shows that of all the countries, for which we have reliable data,
only Tunisia is making headway towards reaching Target 1 of MDG1. Between
1990 and 2000, it was able to cut nearly by half the percentage of its
income-poor. Egypt and Jordan might also reach Target 1.
German Development Institute