Manager of Economic Policy for Poverty Reduction  at the World Bank Institute, Ishac Diwan to YT ” Civil Society Works Best when there is a Clear Democratic Political System” [Archives:2000/13/Business & Economy]

The World Bank Institute(WBI) based in Washington DC has played a very important role in preparing for the MDF3 held in Cairo in early March.
The WBI is a club which aims at spreading knowledge around the world. It also holds some important events to discuss important economic issues like that of the MDF. Mr. Ishac Diwan, Lebanese, is the Manager of Economic Policy for Poverty Reduction at the WBI. He has been working at the World Bank for the past ten years. Mohammed Hatem Al-Qadhi, Yemen Times Managing Editor met him in Cairo and filed the following interview.
Q: Would you please give us a background about how the idea of establishing this MDF came about, and what are the activities the MDF aims to achieve?
A: There are many important persons in the association of think tanks for the independent institute in the region. They are in their countries. Unfortunately, we do not have a partner in Yemen, and we would very much like to have a partner in Yemen, and I hope that the next time when we meet, we will have one. So, these are ten think tanks, one from each country, and they all work on policy issues during the year on their own countries. We come together for the MDF to work together to share experiences, to have a regional space in which they can communicate because as we know we have difficulties in some countries, but the regional space is all over the three years. There is too much to learn from others what has been their success, stories, what to imitate, what not to imitate, which expert you can rely on. This is what the whole idea of MDF is. It is to share knowledge, and there is symbiosis between the local and the regional. The local groups come and give their knowledge to others, and derive their legitimacy from this meeting and knowledge and meetings they come back home. Also it has encouraged collaborative efforts by these groups during the year. So, this is not one event, this is a program, and by holding a meeting every year, we want to assess what has been done during this year and a half. I could give you many examples, but let me just pick two or three of the action of the MDF. One is the work that MDF partners have been doing on municipal governments, and governments in general. This work is led by the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies with the collaboration of the others. It has led last year, to putting together declaration, rights, and legal bases for free associations in the middle east with studies on each country in the region. That work has become very influential now, when the Jordanian parliament debates the right of associations, they look at this and at what other countries are doing, and they can compare the law in Lebanon, and the law in the other countries and pick the right law. There are many examples of this source that have been created by dialogue, that is regional.
Q: Globalization is dominating the whole world, how do you think that the Arab World could globalize or work according to this conception, what are the difficulties in your opinion that face the Arab World?
A: Well, globalization is really all about cheaper communication costs. It has all been put by the increased collectivity. So, that not only goods and people, but ideas, capital and money and culture move around very fast. I think the region has not really joined the train yet, they are still very isolated from the rest of the world. For many reasons, now there is a lot to gain by us from globalization if we manage to join the club because we have the very rich culture, history, traditions and skilled people and we have a lot to serve to the world. You do not see our products anywhere, you do not see the beautiful Arab aesthetics in New York, you see others, and yet it would serve better than others, food, culture, music, products, beautiful Yemeni windows and designs. We have a lot of potential, we have to try to get organized through education, collectivity, internal stability and openness to take advantage of this. At the same time globalization increases our risks also. There is a risk of the region falling behind, becoming more violent and unstable because capital moves faster. If we do not do well, our money will leave and it has been leaving. Our people leave; we educate people in California as opposed to Beirut, Amman, Cairo or Sana’a. I would summarize by saying globalization is opportunities and risk. It is not giving us much choice now, we can not stay like that. Unless we run faster, we are going to fall behind.
Q: What is the role of the World Bank in MDF?
A: The World Bank is active as the secretariat for MDF1 and 2. MDF 3, we have really taken the back seat, we have helped raise some of the funds, we have put some of the financing, but most of them have been raised from around the world, including from the private sector in Egypt, from the region itself with the help of the partners, the Swedish government, the Italians and others have contributed, the details are seen in the program. I want to stress that MDF3 has been mostly put together by the ten partners that I told you about. They were organized they own their executive committee that met once a year during the whole year to monitor the various works, papers, and discussions that happened before. Every panel that you have seen here has been rehearsed before. All of this has been prepared, and that this meeting is only the pretext to get a lot of work going on during the year on all the topics that are on the program. The role of the bank has been very important, but is receding and becoming less and less, which is good because then this initiative is growing, becoming closer to adulthood, and it is owned by the region. I want to remind you that you must have heard about the Dafos meeting that happens every year and attract leaders from the whole world. This is really the development Dafos of the region. The Dafos in Switzerland is forty-years old, we are three-years-old only and I feel we have done a lot in these three years.
Q: You have been present in the first, second, and the third MDF, how are they different from each other, and how do you evaluate this MDF3?
A: I think that this one is the most successful of the all because it was put together much more by people from the region. The material that was presented was much more relevant. What we heard in these past three years are some of the best thinkers from the region. The role of the bank has been to add to them some of the international thinkers. We can establish this relationship between local knowledge and global knowledge, which by the way is another important dimension of successful globalization. We can not just import knowledge from abroad. It is not relevant domestically. We have to adapt and adjust it to our needs. That is to my thinking is the way in which MDF3 is more successful than the previous ones. It has managed better to bring things from outside, but to also add to them the local.
Q: What are the most important issues that have been addressed in this MDF3?
A: This MDF3 organized around seven teams. This is how it works. There are seven teams that work in parallel, and it allows specialists to concentrate on specific issues. Then they come together in plenaries twice a day. So, that they see the place that the expertise occupies in the big picture. This means that they know how to belong to the big picture. The teams that we work on this year’s are: the first one is a global trade and regionalism, the second is institutional reforms, the third is competitiveness or how to become more competitive, the fourth is civil society, the fifth is knowledge and development, then we have financing development, the whole financial sector, and the last one is the employment and labor issues. These were the seven teams. The central team that comes across is voices for change, partners for prosperity. It poses the question how can we take advantage of all these voices. Together as a partnership we can bring prosperity to this region.
Q: What are the obstacles that are facing the civil society build-up in the Arab world?
A: We have rich civil society because our people interacted, they are not like industrialized societies, living alone at home and watching the TV all the time, but at the same time in many of our countries, the legal system does not help associations to form, very often, they may be considered with suspicion, and so one important element is the legal system that allows associations to exist and to prosper. Otherwise, civil society works best when there is a clear democratic political system that invites them to participate in debates, invites them to strengthen and to energize the population. The civil society can not substitute for good political system. That is the second difficulty. If you work in that meeting, you would see, that there are wonderful people who are pushing the causes of the unprivileged, the women, the poor, the disabled.
Q: Any last word ?
A: I really hope that we will find more support and people in Yemen that we can work with, and I hope that MDF5 would so be held in Yemen.
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