Subscribe to FDD  Deficits in the Arab World  9th July 2002 -
Copley News Service  By Jack Kemp  The report confirmed that
during the past 20 years, per capita income growth in Arab
countries, which averaged a stagnant 0.5 percent a year, was the
lowest in the world with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa.
Labor productivity declined 0.2 percent while unemployment
averaged 15 percent, three times the world average.  The report
concluded that a paucity of resources is not the problem: The
Arab world is "richer than it is developed. Arab countries have
the resources to eradicate absolute poverty in less than a
generation." Instead, the Arab report identified "three
deficits" that pose "serious obstacles to human development:
freedom, empowerment of women and knowledge."  Democracy, the
report found, "has barely reached the Arab states," and a third
of the adult population is illiterate -- half of all Arab women
cannot read or write. "This freedom deficit undermines human
development." Ranking countries on a wi