The Peninsula
Wednesday, 20 October 2010 03:11
The number of wealthy Arabs, according to the latest report by Forbes Arabia, is estimated at 34 billionaires, with a total wealth of approximately $115.8 billion. The magazine reports that Saudi Arabia, which is the Kingdom of wealthy Arabs, has maintained its leading position in the number of billionaires in the Arab world, averaging 14 billionaires with a total wealth of up to $60.5 billion, and they possess half of the wealth of all Arabs. Kuwait comes after Saudi Arabia in the ranking of Arab countries and the total wealth of Kuwaitis is listed at $11.5 billion, while the United Arab Emirates has been able to occupy third place with 6 Arab billionaires with a total wealth of up to $22.1 billion. Egypt came in fourth place, followed by Lebanon in fifth. According to reports by other international publications, the rate of per capita income in some capitals of the Gulf such as Abu Dhabi and Doha, for example, is over $87 thousand, while in Bahrain it is $35 thousand dollars, compared to $2400 in Yemen and $2300 in Sudan, which illustrates the gap between the haves and have nots in the Arab world.
The World Bank defines low-income countries (LIC) as those countries with a low per capita income of $600, and characterizes 45 countries as LICs. Most LICs exist in Africa, including at least 15 countries with an average per capita income of $300 per year. The United Nations Development Programme adds other criteria reflecting directly on humans’ level of well-being and quality of life, which expand the concept of poverty to include the quality of life. That index concludes that about 45% of people in 70 countries are poor living in communities that are not of low income. In other words, there are poor in the land of the rich, and it suffices to mention here that 30 million people live below the poverty line in the United States (15% of the population). In Arab States, the World Bank report warns of the impact of poverty and the huge disparity in wealth in the Middle East, especially in the generation of radical movements and groups, violence and extremism, which encourage young people to engage in them. The Report notes Yemen in this context, in which al Qaeda is active as well as several different terrorist insurgencies. Figures indicate that 6 countries in the Middle East are among the top 20 countries receiving U.S. aid, where Yemen received $152 million last year, while the West Bank received $800 million. The latest report by the news station CNN points out that more than a billion and a half Muslims live in the world, making up a promising market, but 39 per cent of them are below the poverty line, according to figures from the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). The Arab world is divided into groups in terms of wealth and poverty: the oil-rich group of countries, Libya and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (consisting of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and the Sultanate of Oman), middle-income countries (MIC) including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, and poor countries like Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibouti and Palestine.
In a study on Arab poverty belts, Khalid Ali states that he cannot exclude the region of the oil-rich GCC from of the phenomenon of poverty belts for a variety of reasons. The GCC was not formed like the Mashreq countries and Morocco, as the development process depends on profit-taking coupled with unfairness in the distribution of resources between citizens and regions, leaving behind poverty belts. For example, in a rich city like Riyadh, no one dares to talk about the slums except after the visit of the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz (then-Crown) to such neighborhoods in November 2002. The crisis of poverty belts in the GCC deepens with the presence of foreign laborers working in cities and the capitals who then leave at the end of the day to live on the fringes in dire economic conditions both in terms of income and treatment. The seriousness of this issue is such that employment in the GCC includes more than 10 million foreign workers and 3 million members of their families. These workers’ protests in the GCC have been repetitive due to the ill-treatment to which they are exposed and delays in payments of their salaries.
Bill Gates’ last speech raised global concern “that 40 of the richest tycoons the United States have decided to convert half of their wealth to benefit the needy and the poor”. Bill Gates with his wife Melinda undertook the campaign “Pledge to Give”, with the support of the second-richest man in the US, Warren Buffett, who stated, after announcing the success of the first phase of the campaign, that “we’ve just started, but the volume of response is enormous and greater than we expected. Many of those we met promised more than half of their wealth, as posed by the campaign to benefit the needy and the poor”. Melinda adds, “we have a pool much larger than all of our expectations and we are very pleased and appreciate this response. We feel a great responsibility on ways to direct these funds to best achieve the goal at the highest level.” Their initiative is an attempt to apply the act of network relations on charitable work. As the campaign gained popularity, the wealthy sought to give back and share experiences in developing strategies. As Financial Times reports, currently, Gates and Buffett are transferring their model of charitable work to the world over constant visits to China and India to meet with some of the wealthiest businessmen. Gates expects that latter to be the second after the US in charitable work by the rich. During the Third International Conference on ICT for Development, which was held in the Qatari capital Doha, Buffet revealed that through technology, his organization is working to reduce the number of children who die under the age of five due to poverty by the year 2025.
It is a distinctly humane model that we cannot find a match for in the world, especially in Arab countries with the highest percentage of poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment at the international level. Rich and wealthy Arabs are needed to undertake a related approach at the very least through investing their wealth in productive projects in Arab countries or in countries and regions of the marginalized and poor. That way, Arabs can bridge the gap between people lacking basic needs and life requirements rather than relying on imports from abroad forever, which is the case in all Arab countries, especially the six GCC states.
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