Sustainable Development – A Smart Solution for Africa and the Middle East

The Middle East and Africa represent almost 25% of the world’s population, and how they navigate this period of global volatility will determine their progress – or regression – for at least the next decade. Far too often, however, both regions are afterthoughts in international considerations of managing global volatility. The Middle East is an outlier, factored in only on the basis of its oil production, and Africa is an object – a poor continent in need of assistance rather than the potentially massive and largely untapped market that it is.

This is a critical moment for U.S. leadership and one that demands that the United States pursues mutually beneficial, long-lasting relationships predicated on investments in sustainable political and economic development.

The Global Trends 2040 report recently issued by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence finds that the Middle East and North Africa, during the next five years, will face wide-ranging challenges that their overwhelmed governments will be ill-equipped to address. Meanwhile sub-Saharan Africa will – hopefully – begin to reinvigorate the upward momentum, which was reversed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While most analyses of the future of the global economy focus on North America, Europe and Asia, it is perhaps these regions that will best determine the future of our planet.

Today, 89.3 million people are struggling to survive after being forcibly displaced. 648 million live in extreme poverty and half of the global population lives on less than $6.85 per person per day. . Alarmingly, extreme poverty is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 60 percent of all people in extreme poverty. Moreover, the Middle East and North Africa is the only region where poverty levels have been increasing since 2014, mostly due to fragility and conflict.

Unchecked, these trends will undermine a rules-based global order as people lose faith in governments. Massive human suffering will reinforce the increasingly common view that there is no common humanity – and that it is now every man for himself.

Recent research by the Pew Research Center notes an increase in popular dissatisfaction with how democracies are working, and that the strongest predictor of that dissatisfaction is the state of national economies. While there are many other credible theories that may explain these trends, these analyses underscore the need to boost effective governance and ensure that democracies deliver economically for their constituents.

U.S. opportunities to foster sustainable political and economic development play out differently in the two regions, however. Both regions face a staggering demand for job creation to meet the needs of a growing youth demographic – a priority that is on the minds of most African leaders but is a less evident priority in the Middle East.

Regional strategies to address this shortage of economic opportunity are less evident in a divided Middle East than in Africa, where there is a solid foundation upon which to build.

Most African leaders have for some years prioritized economic development at the national level and, at a continental level, it is the top priority. Under the auspices of the African Union, the continent has adopted a long-term development plan called Agenda 2063, negotiated a common position at the level of heads of state on the Sustainable Development Goals, and ratified an agreement for a Continental Free Trade Area. Faced with the pandemic, the continent built its own supply chain for medical imports and established the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Trust to procure half the vaccines that were required.

To be sure, challenges remain – an uptick in democratic backsliding, weak institutions, chronic conflicts, and a burgeoning debt crisis to name but a few. The obstacles to generating development momentum in the Middle East, however, are far greater.

There is no meaningful regional economic agenda or strategy for political development. Leaders tend to invest less political capital in social, economic, and political development than their counterparts in Africa, and the economies driving its aggregate growth are rentier states that produce little other than oil and gas and are increasingly vulnerable to market volatility. Based on Freedom House rankings, most of its countries and territories – Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, West Bank and Gaza and Yemen – are defined as “not free.”

Therefore at the simplest level, the development imperative for the U.S. in its relations with Africa is getting to scale; in the Middle East it is putting development on the agenda in the first place.

The recent U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit laid the groundwork for moving the ball forward in Africa, including through the agreement to design a long-term partnership to maximize the potential of the continent’s agricultural sector. While progress has slowed, Power Africa – an Obama-era presidential initiative that aims to double access to electricity on the continent – provides another opening. And transitioning the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a bipartisan trade preference program launched by President Clinton, to regional free trade arrangements could have a dynamic impact on the continent and derive benefits for the U.S.

Making development a priority in the Middle East is a tougher challenge. U.S. assistance to that region, while substantial, has been largely transactional and driven by security rather than developmental priorities.

Since 1946, for example, the United States has provided Egypt with well over $85 billion in assistance. Yet today, one-third of Egyptians live in poverty, and Cairo has just finalized an agreement on its fourth financial support package from the International Monetary Fund in six years.

To be sure, U.S. engagement with the Middle East will and should continue to focus on the security issues. But if the Arab Spring taught us anything, it is that the failure of states to deliver for their citizens invites instability. Recalibrating our assistance away from a near exclusive focus on security and towards a much greater emphasis on development, institution-building and democratization is likely to yield more sustainable returns.

By adopting a long-term vision and making the necessary investments to address these challenges, the United States can play a global leadership role in solving some of the underlying problems that constrain political and economic stability in both Africa and the Middle East.

Failing to do so would mean that any progress achieved will be pulled under the waves of global threats and challenges we know are coming – reversions that will deny hundreds of millions of young people, the world economy, and the United States the global stability, order, and freedom they seek.