Major Problems of Arab World

Major Problems of Arab World

Introduction

This paper highlights some of the major social and economic problems being faced by the Arab world. These problems range from poverty, corruption, human and drug trafficking. The Middle East CONTAINS a wide variety of nations and states that is as diverse in economic opportunities as it is in ethnicity, religion, and language. It ranges from Iran and Iraq bordering on the Afghanistan region in the east, the Persian Gulf states in the south, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Syria on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and the North African Muslim states to the west. The cultural and economic patterns linking this region also link it in some contexts with Turkey and the island of Cyprus. It is, therefore, a complex region with a great deal of diversity.

Poverty

According to the Committee for Research on Poverty (CROP), the Arab definition of poverty is “an inability of an individual to satisfy his own basic needs and the needs of his dependents.” But the reality of poverty takes different forms in the Arab world. As just one example, consider Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, which possesses 25 percent of the world's petroleum reserves.

It would be simplistic to classify it as the Muslim region of the world because that would be to ignore the many important ethnic and religious minority peoples contained within its scope, and also the other Muslim peoples in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the majority of the region has been welded together historically through context, most notably the Ottoman Empire that was finally dismembered after centuries of rule at the end of World War I. The legacy of the bureaucracy of the Byzantine Empire and its inability to provide economic growth partly led to the institutionalized corruption that became endemic within its borders, symbolized by the Egyptian word and concept of baksheesh.

Political and religious divisions have led to widespread and longstanding violence in many areas and this has led to many business activities being kept secret. For reasons of cultural practice and habit, many agreements are made on the basis of mutual friendship or kinship and are not subject to wider scrutiny. This practice is seen both in government and private sectors. The results of this include a wide range of opportunities for corruption and bad practices to flourish.

Oil Corruption

Corruption is believed to be particularly widespread in the oil and construction industries, both of which are of considerable importance in the Middle East as oil wealth from reserves discovered in the 20th century led both to a demand by external powers to control the oil through either military force or commercial domination, as well as a burst of infrastructure building and more general expenditure by the newly rich owners.

The discovery of oil in some Middle East nations has led to a widening of the gap in economic opportunities between rich and poor, and the importance of the industry has meant that political considerations have underscored some commercial ...