New figures suggest that 22 percent of the Middle East’s assets under management (AUM)—or $700 billion—were held by women in 2010. And that figure is growing. In a region whose news coverage more often highlights the plight of women than their triumphs and progress, this statistic is heartening. The details are even more encouraging.

Women in the Middle East are not only controlling more wealth, but tend to invest in more sustainable ventures, says consultancy Carousel Solutions. It’s not that women are wooed by simply “doing good” and “giving back.” Rather, they recognize these projects as solid, lower-risk investments that have the added benefit of being socially responsible. Financial empowerment is in strong hands with these women, who, the consulting firm suggests, are more confident about their wealth today. Read the rest of this entry »

The UN says poor countries need to Unleash Entrepreneurship; the Kauffman Foundation calls for entrepreneurs globally to Unleash Ideas. For the Middle East and North Africa, unleashing entrepreneurs is necessary to create the 80 million jobs the region needs over the next decade. Published in 2007, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity details what – and in many cases who – keeps entrepreneurs on a leash in the Middle East and elsewhere. Tomorrow at 12pm EST, CIPE will launch the Arabic translation of the book in Cairo, Egypt. Audiences around the world can watch the event live via webcast. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Shiltag Abood, Governor of Basrah Province, speaking at the Basrah Provincial Business Agenda Presentation. (Photo: CIPE)

If you look past the news reports that conjecture Iraq is destined for failure and into the places where Iraqi private sector leaders and policymakers are convening to discuss policy, I wonder if it could be said that Iraq is doing relatively better with the task of building a democracy than say, France in its early days. When the French Revolution ended in 1799, the French were sure that never again would they live under an absolute monarchy that ignored their inalienable rights. Yet France still saw the rise of a dictator, two restorations of the monarchy, and two more revolutions. It wasn’t until 1958 that the France we know now was established as a democracy. With a world of stakeholders and a world of history from which to draw lessons behind them, Iraqi leaders might actually have a democratic advantage. Read the rest of this entry »

As unemployment rates keep rising in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, CIPE partners in the region are helping to reinforce the need for entrepreneurship, market-oriented and democratic societies. Over the next few weeks, CIPE is releasing a series of success stories video clips in which partners talk about their successes in advocating for local entrepreneurship initiatives, good governance and public-private dialogue. These private-sector organizations are advocating for policies that remove barriers to business and create a more level playing field for entrepreneurs to create the jobs and opportunity the region needs.

In this video, the Executive Director of the Palestinian Business Women Forum (BWF), Doa Wadi, highlights the journey BWF has taken, as well as challenges and lessons learned along the way as BWF positions itself as the voice of women entrepreneurs throughout the West Bank. Read the rest of this entry »

Naufel Al-Hassan, the Commercial Counselor of the Embassy of Iraq’s Commercial Office (seated on the far left), and Abdel Razzak Al-Saadi, Chairman of the Iraqi Securities Commission, (seated fourth from the left) at the CIPE headquarters in Washington, DC last week. (Photo: CIPE)

On April 28, CIPE hosted Chairman Abdel Razzak Al-Saadi of the Iraqi Securities Commission (ISC), at its headquarters in Washington, DC. Although Iraq is still emerging from conflict and facing sizeable security threats, Chairman Al-Saadi is optimistic and reiterated that Iraq is open for business. Since its inception in 2004,the ISC has listed over 90 companies to the Iraqi Stock Exchange. With new investment and entrepreneurship blooming in Iraq, the country has a window of opportunity to rebuild much of what the conflict has damaged or destroyed. Read the rest of this entry »

Iraqi women after voting.

It’s true that this election in Iraq is significantly different from the last one in 2005; however, we should be aware that this is a classic reminder that elections do not equal democracy. As ballots are counted and results tallied, a growing civil society is not-so-quietly preparing to voice Iraqi needs and concerns on a multitude of issues. Read the rest of this entry »

Haifa Wehbe, a popular singer in Lebanon, dons an LTA t-shirt for the BLOM Beirut Marathon.

When you live and work in a region where daily life accessories may include shoulder-mounted missiles and backpack bombs, efforts to reduce corruption have plenty of incentive to be as creative as possible. The Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA) is the Lebanon chapter of Transparency International, and rather than investigating or exposing individual cases of corruption, which might invite a few unwanted accessories, LTA focuses on systemic factors that create situations for bribery, nepotism, patronage, embezzlement, and other forms of corruption. If you’re interested in asking LTA what it’s like to do this kind of work, you can ask them yourself, later today on Facebook.

LTA is CIPE’s featured partner for March 2010. Every month, CIPE on social media features one partner to highlight its work and the issues it faces in its region.

A worker checks a switch linked to a generator that distributes electricity to residents in Beirut. (Photo: AFP/ JOSEPH BARRAK)

A few months ago, the Lebanese Anti-Bribery Network—an initiative of the Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA) supported by CIPE—organized a roundtable in Beirut to discuss a draft policy paper on good governance in the Lebanese electricity sector, with representatives of the national utilities company Electricité du Liban present. In an eerie strike of irony, an hour into the event, the hotel hosting the roundtable experienced a power shortage that resulted in a brief blackout. Read the rest of this entry »

With the recent conference on UN Convention on Corruption (UNCAC) implementation in Doha on November 9-13, anti-corruption efforts are a hot topic in the Middle East and North Africa. At a minimum, the Doha gathering focused the attention of government bodies tasked with implementing the agreement, and the final statement of this conference encourages the state parties to adopt a robust implementation plan. Although most Arab states have signed and ratified UNCAC, implementation has been weak and anti-corruption advocates are using the tool as a point of pressure on their governments. Indeed, they have an uphill battle to fight: international barometers and indicators, such as the recently released Corruption Perception Index (CPI), an annual ranking produced by Transparency International, consistently place MENA at the bottom of the barrel with some exceptions in the Gulf. It is widely accepted that corruption is rampant in most of the region, and that its detrimental effects serve to deepen poverty, sustain unresponsive regimes, and thwart the potential for economic growth. Read the rest of this entry »

The street vendor is a ubiquitous feature of urban life virtually everywhere in the world.  Food served from a battered cart, jewelry on rickety table, local souvenirs laid in neat rows on a blanket (ready to be pulled up by the corners at the first sign of the police).

Street vendors are often viewed as an urban nuisance even in the most developed of economies – recall Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s war on vendors, legal or otherwise, in New York City in the 1990s.  The Federation of Economic Development Associations (FEDA), a grassroots federation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt, knew that this would be an issue that would capture attention when its launched its own program aimed at this unlikely group of small business owners.

Still, FEDA has sparked public debate on the issue in Egypt at a level it didn’t expect.  It earned significant print and broadcast media coverage – most recently, a spot on Nile Life TV’s popular Every Night program.  Every Night is seen nationwide in Egypt and by satellite throughout the MENA region.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s funny when a survey is released how everyone becomes an amateur statistician.  I’m guilty of it, too – the first thing I do when I get a survey is flip with a skeptical eye to the methodology page. Of course, methodology is an important element of understanding a survey’s data.  But often, methodology is attacked to distract attention from the elephant in the room – the uncomfortable truth that a survey can reveal.

CIPE Egypt, in cooperation with the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), recently released a survey of nearly 800 Egyptian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) about their experiences with corruption (results here).  Corruption is endemic in all aspects of Egyptian life.  Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Egypt at 115 out of 180, and Global Integrity’s 2008 assessment of institutional integrity rates Egypt as Very Weak.  CIPE’s survey was intended to get feedback from SMEs about the corruption they face in the course of doing business, with an eye toward opportunities for targeted reform.

I attended CIPE’s public release of the survey in Cairo (more in CIPE’s latest OverseasREPORT here).  While there were more than a handful of methodological nitpickers, the majority of participants and panelists – including business associations, owners of SMEs, media, academics, and representatives of the Egyptian government – engaged in a serious discussion on the issue of corruption in Egypt and how to tackle it.  The result was a remarkably open and frank discussion of a topic that was once taboo. 
Read the rest of this entry »

Yemen remains one of the most underdeveloped countries in the Middle East and around the world. In 2009, it was ranked 153 out of 177 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index.  Economic progress in the country is being hindered by a host of issues including poor governance, weak institutions, terrorism, and social unrest in both the northern and southern parts of the country.

Qat consumption is another major hurdle contributing to the poor performance of the Yemeni economy. Qat or “Catha edulis” is a tree that grows mainly in Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and classified as a drug by the UN and the U.S. Qat leaves are used as a narcotic when chewed to achieve a state of euphoria and stimulation. Research showed that 70 to 80 percent of Yemenis consume Qat on daily basis and for extended hours, resulting in the loss of millions of work hours and billions of dollars in income and lost opportunity. In addition, Qat limits food production, as farmers use a large portion of agricultural land to plant Qat trees. New reports show that Yemen is severely threatened by water depletion, with so much of it being directed to the irrigation of these trees.

The Yemeni authorities launched a recent campaign to replace Qat trees with other cash crops like coffee trees, wheat, corn and beans. Similar government attempts during the 1970s and 1990s were not successful because of the government’s failure to link farmers with markets to sell their products and become self-sustainable. To avoid failure comparable to these past attempts, the government must help farmers create internal demand for the alternative crops and ensure it profits them in order to prevent a regression back to the lucrative Qat business.

On July 21st the United Nations Development Program released the 5th volume of the Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) series in Beirut. Launching this report from Lebanon- a volatile country that recently witnessed free, democratic elections- may have signaled a bit of wishful thinking that reform is possible, despite the abysmal governance record in the Arab world. The Arab Human Development Reports, written by over 100 independent Arab intellectuals and scholars, are known to be harsh in their criticism, but this volume seems to be particularly strident given that in the 4 years since the last report was published, little progress has been made. In fact, the democratic- albeit marginal- space that flourished in the “Arab Spring” of 2005 has been brutally suppressed and environmental, social, and economic challenges have become all the more acute with demographic pressures.

Despite the bleak outlook, The Economist, which published a special report on the Arab World this week in light of the AHDR release, notes that, “Behind the stagnation of its formal politics, it [today’s Arab world] is engaged in a fierce and potentially history-altering battle of ideas.”  The Economist points specifically to the private sector as the “green shoots of change,” arguing that “the expanding role of business means that the circle of consultation and decision-making has grown beyond the coterie that used to call the shots.” In this same article, CIPE partner, Abdel Monem Said Aly, director of the Al Ahram Centre in Cairo, states that by employing more people and investing more in the economy than the government, the private sector is changing the way Egypt is governed.

One of the major challenges in the Arab world will be enacting economic reforms to absorb the influx of youth entering the labor market. The report estimates that 51 million new jobs must be created by 2020, which can only be accomplished by moving away from a dependence on oil exports to a more diversified, knowledge-based economy that provides employment opportunities.  The importance of private-sector led growth is further highlighted on the Newsweek blog where the work of CIPE partner, Injaz, on youth entrepreneurship in Egypt is described as “a breath of fresh air” and a way to inject optimism and productivity into the region.

The UNDP should be commended for presenting the challenges facing this region in a meticulous and thorough manner. While not everyone will agree with its policy prescriptions, above all the AHDR is supposed to provide a platform for dialogue. The role of the business community in tackling these intractable issues should factor significantly into any discussion about human development.

The legendary Roy Rees literally wrote the book on coaching soccer, which featured his famous line, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.” Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki visited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today, along with U.S. National Security Advisor General James L. Jones (Ret.), and the Chairman of the Iraq National Investment Commission, Dr. Sami Al-Araji to highlight the economic opportunities for U.S. businesses in Iraq. The pressure’s now on the Iraqi business community. Have they been practicing? Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week I had a chance to hear six recent college graduates/graduate students (see bios here) present brief summaries of policy recommendations formed at youth conferences in Rabat (Morocco), Cairo (Egypt), and Amman (Jordan).  The event was organized by Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) and The Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED). 

Why young people’s views on reform?  Youth constitute a majority of the Middle East population and, leaving universities, many young people find themselves at the crossroads – unable to get jobs in the public or private sectors. 

One issue that people consistently highlighted was the idea of cultural exchange. Two representatives spoke from the experience of each conference, all three of which included cultural exchange as a needed policy target area. Person-to-person opportunities were cited as very effective but not nearly frequent enough, possibly hampered by logistics and definitely hampered by lack of funding. One point touched on cultural exchange as a way for youth in MENA to gain cultural self-awareness in the global context, as well as cultivating the notion of civic duty.

Developing independent media was another issue present in many discussions. The Rabat and Cairo representatives emphasized the need for more funding of media development programs, including journalist training, website management training, and advocating for media protection rights. The Amman representatives noted that censoring and other government interference remains a major obstacle to democratic development. The Rabat representatives also provided an interesting context to the emerging Moroccan blog world: “The most popular blogs are written in French; the most radical are written in Arabic; the most liberal are written in English.”

During the question-and-answer session, one audience member brought up corporate governance as an element of democracy, with one representative from the Cairo conference noting that it is not talked about very much but perhaps it is something they should revisit the next time around; while one representative from the Rabat conference added that ethics are important to Middle Eastern culture, so that transparency and accountability can best flow through that channel into the private sector.  This is a great capture of the linkages between private and public sector governance indeed.