Challenges of Demographic Pressures and Resource Scarcity on the Political Economy in the Levant & MENA Region/Levant ve MENA Bolgesi Politik Ekonomisinde Demografik Baskilar ve Kaynak Kitligi Sorunlari.

• Author: Tur, Ozlem
• Position: Middle East and Northern Africa - Report

Introduction

Back in 1995, Alan Richards warned us about an overemphasis on conflict and wars in the Middle East. While the region has undoubtedly witnessed many conflicts, interventions and civil strife, as Richards argues, "there is a quieter, deeper source of instability--mounting economic problems". The Middle East has been falling behind other regions with its "inability to curb population growth", which has produced a youth bulge, engendering "a rising tide of young people seeking jobs". As the population increases, there is "a quietly increasing challenge to acquire adequate food", thus the region "cannot feed itself; food dependency will grow in the near future, as the water constraint binds more tightly". Richards further argues that, "there is a way out" and is rather straightforward as "technocrats know what to do". Yet, the problem lies with the leaders/states as they "lack the will and the skill to pull it off. Weak political systems may well deliver 'too little, too late.'" (1)

This paper aims to address these challenges--that of population growth and resource scarcity in the Levant and also adds the environmental challenges as a multiplying factor, and argues that despite many studies that call for immediate attention and action, the region suffers from a lack of political will in tackling these problems. (2) Trying to grapple with hard security issues, bread and butter issues are often of secondary concern. Yet, as the human security concerns are neglected, the stability in the region is at higher risk.

When the Arab uprisings began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and beyond by the end of 2010, many analysts rushed to talk about population growth, unemployment, increasing food prices and the ensuing inequality in the region. One of the core discussions since then has been how the radical republics of the region, shaking up with demands for change are unable to respond to the growing challenges. The Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) of 2009 highlighted how the human security or lack of it in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region constituted an important watershed in these discussions. (3) The report argued that "the trend in the region has been to focus more on the security of the state than on the security of the people" and called for a new approach that focused on the "human as the main agent". In a way, as mentioned in the beginning of this paper, parallel to what Richards was arguing more than a decade ago, the report criticized the emphasis on the traditional conception of security and underlined that such an emphasis "led to missed opportunities to ensure the security of the human person". Thus, what is faced in the region resulted in "an all-too-common sense of limited opportunities and personal insecurity, witnessed in the world's highest levels of unemployment, deep and contentious patterns of exclusion". (4) As is underlined in the report, for decades the Arab citizen, suffered from seven dimensions of threat: 1) People and their insecure environment; 2) The State and its insecure people; 3) The vulnerability of those lost from sight; 4) Volatile growth, high unemployment and persisting poverty; 5) Hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity; 6) Health security challenges; and 7) Occupation and military interventions. (5)

The inability to respond to these concerns thus lies at the heart of the uprisings. Yet, as will be argued below, why the uprisings happened at the moment they did, by the end of 2010, and not before has a great deal to do with the Arab state and its regime survival priorities. The demonstration of frustration among the young "middle class poor", whose hopes for a better future were dashed due to the inability and unwillingness of the states to respond to these challenges for decades, is important to discuss in this context. As a demonstration of the importance of this fact, as will be discussed below, the AHDR of 2016 focuses on the youth population. Yet, to what extent the points underlined in the Report will be taken into account and will help the Arab states to overcome their survival priorities and act on the youth problems is altogether another question.

Demographic Pressure

The region hosts one of the fastest growing populations of the world. High fertility rates in the Arab world in general (six children per women in the 1980s) have produced a youth bulge between the ages of 15 and 24. One of the most striking characteristics of the MENA, no doubt, has been its rapid population growth. In four decades population numbers have more than quadrupled, rising from 124 million in 1970 and reaching 350 million. By 2050 the population of MENA is expected to reach around 600 million, 685 million in 2070 and 845 million in 2100 according to United Nations medium-fertility scenario. What is also important to note is that the share of the youth in the population in 2010 was 27.9 percent. (6) The number of youth is expected to rise to 100 million by 2035. (7) In the high-fertility scenario, MENA's population is expected to double by 2080, which together with projected climate impacts, puts the resources of the region, especially water and land, under enormous pressure as it will be coupled with the high existing pressure to create new employment opportunities.

R population growth is challenging enough for countries, but when the shares of certain population groups within states grow more rapidly than others, a so-called "differential fertility", the issue becomes even more challenging. Most countries of the Levant are composed of critical minorities as well as limitations on certain groups' access to political power. Changing population dynamics, one group growing more than the others, complicates the political and social dynamics. The Alawite minority in Syria, the Shi'a and the Kurds in Iraq, the secular/orthodox divide in Israel, rapid population growth in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as well as the population ratios of East Bankers in Jordan are critical. According to the recently released figures by the Israel Bureau of Statistics, there is "a massive rise in birth rates in the Jewish state." (8) Accordingly, 181,405 babies were born in Israel in 2016, showing "a 92 percent increase over the number of babies born in 1980. Of those babies, 73.9 percent were born to Jewish women, and 23.3 percent to Arab women." (9) Considering that the birth rate is higher especially among the ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have low participation in the work force, this stands as a divisive issue for the future of the society, as well as a constraint on economic growth. (10) However challenging these population changes may be, none of these cases pose as important of a threat to stability as does the case of Lebanon. The confessional system established in Lebanon is based on the 1932 census, which determined the Maronite community as the majority. (11) Since then, although the population ratios are considered to have radically changed, no other census has been conducted. The Shi'a population has grown considerably and is thought to constitute a majority in the country, yet a parallel change in the system is not permitted. (12) The emergence of the Amal movement in 1970s, as the Movement of the Dispossessed, was an attempt to change this, while the popularity of Hezbollah from 1980s is also related to this fact. In addition to general challenges that a growing population poses for the states, differential changes, when combined with lack of political opportunities and change, creates a suitable environment for more radical movements to grow, deepening the fragility of the state. When thinking about population growth, this aspect is also especially pressing for the Levant countries.

Growing Youth Bulge and Unemployment

As is often underlined, one of the most important characteristics of the region is its young population--that is the youth bulge--that constitutes the fastest growing segment of the Arab population. (13) Around 60 percent of the population is considered to be less than 25 years of age, making the region one of the most youthful regions in the world, with a median age of 22 years, compared to a global average of 28.5. As the UN Report of 2011 argued, although such a large number of youth "could become the backbone of strong economies and a vibrant future if they had the right education, skills, and job opportunities", they are challenged with a lack of opportunities and high unemployment. (14) In line with what Richards and Waterbury argue, population growth has "retarded the development process and stressed the polity" in the region. (15) One of the most important challenges, presented by the increasing population, is unemployment. According to International Labor Organization, youth unemployment is higher in the MENA region than in any other region of the world. (16) While the world average for unemployment is six percent and the youth unemployment is 12.6 percent, the numbers reach 10.2 percent for total unemployment and 27...