UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT
Box 17.1: Upgrading the Suez Canal
The Suez Canal provides a vital shipping
link between Europe and Asia. On
5 August 2014, Egyptian President
Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi announced plans
for a ‘new’ Suez Canal that would run in
parallel to the current waterway. This was
to be the first major expansion of this vital
trading route in its 145-year history.
The Egyptian plan to upgrade the Suez
Canal could raise its capacity from 49
to 97 passing ships a day by 2023. The
current Suez Canal, which connects the
Mediterranean with the Red Sea, can
mostly only facilitate one-way traffic
and is too narrow at some points for
vessels to pass one another. The new
canal is expected to solve this problem
and thereby cut the waiting time for ships
from 11 to 3 hours. The area around the
canal (76 000 km²) is being turned into an
international industrial and logistics hub.
Officials expect the new development to
boost annual revenue from the canal, which
is operated by the state-owned Suez Canal
Authority, from US$ 5 billion at present
to US$ 13.5 billion. In October 2014, work
began on deepening the Suez Canal.
Some shipping industry executives had
expressed doubts as to whether Egypt could
obtain sufficient funding to finish the project
on schedule. The Egyptian government
was adamant that the project would not
be dependent on foreign funding. By
September 2014, the total amount needed
(US$ 8.4 billion) had been raised,
according to the Egyptian central bank,
through the issuance of 500 million
shares reserved for Egyptians. The
government inaugurated the new canal
on 6 August 2015.
Despite widespread acknowledgment
that the project is an economic
necessity, some scientists fear that that it
could damage the marine ecosystem. A
group of 18 scientists from 12 countries
published a letter in 2014 in the journal
of Biological Invasions calling on the
Egyptian government to take steps to
minimize any ecological damage.
Source: compiled by authors
Peace Research Institute 3 (see also Figure 17.1) However, the
largest increase in the region (27%) came from Iraq, which is
reconstituting its armed forces.
The escalating pressures on Arab states, particularly those
related to security and counterterrorism – including military
confrontations with radical groups such as Al Qaida and
Da’esh –, have spurred the governments of these countries to
increase their own military spending.
Still a long way to go to improve governance
There is little doubt that corruption has played a pivotal role
in the outbreak of turmoil since 2010. Available estimates
suggest that the smuggling of funds amounted annually to
US$ 2 billion in Egypt and US$ 1 billion in Tunisia, according
to the institution charged with monitoring the soundness of
the global financial sector (Global Financial Integrity, 2013).
This amount represented 3.5% of Tunisia’s GDP and 2% of
Egypt’s in 2005.
Government effectiveness has deteriorated in several Arab
countries. Kaufmann et al. (2013) found that, in the Arab
world, only the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar ranked
above the 80th percentile in 2013. Bahrain and Oman ranked
between the 60th and 70th percentiles and five countries
between the 50th and 60th percentiles, namely, Jordan,
Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.
3. See: www.sipri.org/media/pressreleases/2014/Milex_April_2014 (accessed
16 January 2015)
The voice and accountability indicator over the past ten
years has been disappointing, according to Kaufmann et al.
(2011; 2013). In 2013, the scores for the top five Arab states
(Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait and Jordan) were low
by international standards (between the 45th and 25th
percentiles). Algeria, Iraq, Libya and Palestine show some
improvement but, overall, 12 Arab states registered a decline
in voice and accountability between 2003 and 2013, namely:
Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
An economic downturn in most Mashreq countries
The countries of the Mashreq have a population of about
196 million, or 53.4% of the Arab population. With the
exception of Iraq, they have few oil reserves. Thanks to
high commodity prices for oil, Iraq was able to weather
the global financial crisis better than its neighbours. The
slump in Sudan’s economy in 2012, however, was more
a consequence of the birth of South Sudan in 2011 and
subsequent skirmishes between the two Sudans than the
impact of global shocks.
In 2013, GDP per capita in the Mashreq countries, Egypt and
Sudan was highest in Lebanon and lowest in Sudan. From
2008 to 2013, annual growth slowed in all the countries of this
group, even though it was less noticeable in Palestine in 2013.
Over the same period, unemployment rates changed little in
all but Egypt, where the slump in tourism and FDI following
the revolution in 2011 pushed up unemployment (Table 17.1).
With the return to stability, GDP growth recovered to 2.9% in
2014 and is expected to hit 3.6% in 2015. Economic growth
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