The scene in the ballroom of the venerable Bristol Hotel in Beirut last week was the epitome of low-keyness: dozens of mature men and a sprinkling of women seated around a large, U-shaped conference table, in slightly dim lighting, hearing lecturers and participating in open discussions over two days.
This gathering, however, reminded me of why I am confident that the dysfunctional mismanagement and occasional criminality of the modern Arab world will not persist forever. The meeting, organized by the Arab Anti-Corruption Organization, reminded me of why I am confident that the Arab world in my lifetime will start to transform top-heavy, mismanaged, and corruption-riddled governments into more productive and humane systems.
It is abundantly clear that sustainable change in the Arab world will not soon occur through three mechanisms that have transformed other societies: Iranian-style internal popular revolutions; foreign military or political intervention; or Gorbachev-style domestic change from above. Existing power structures in the Arab world lean towards personalized permanence, not change.
Having watched concrete poured over the Arab world during the past 40 years - so that it has become the only region in the world that is collectively and chronically undemocratic - my guess is that the most likely mechanism for change will emanate from elsewhere: expanding private-sector businesses that require a foundation of rule-of-law to function; increasingly cash-strapped governments that find no alternative to liberalizing seriously and steadily; and, the concentrated pressure, cajoling and partnership of respected civil society organizations that know how governments operate, and how they must evolve.
The Arab Anti-Corruption Organization (AACO) is one of several such institutions in the Arab world working to break through - or at least chip away at - the steel wall that protects the region's prevailing centralized, autocratic power structures. The Bristol symposium was titled "Better Fiscal and Monetary Controls in the Arab world" - a deceptively technical sentence. Along with civilian control of security sectors, more efficient public finances offer the best hope for pushing the Arab region from stagnant mediocrity towards dignified citizenship coupled with productive growth.
The organizers of and participants in the AACO meeting were not radicals, but rather sons and daughters of the modern Arab establishment - former prime ministers and finance ministers, parliamentarians, and senior fiscal sector officials. They included Salim Hoss and George Corm from Lebanon, Amer Khayyat from Iraq, Taher Kanaan and Mohammad Hammouri from Jordan, Nasser Saneh from Kuwait, Abboud Sarraj from Syria, Ahmad Ashour from Egypt, Abdul Latif Atrouz from Morocco and many others.
They and others around the region have worked patiently for six years now since they founded AACO to pursue several tracks that will eventually penetrate and ultimately puncture the structures of Arab public sector intemperance, incompetence and corruption. They prepare studies - available in books and on their website - documenting the weaknesses in existing accountability systems, and suggesting where and how loopholes must be closed. They clarify why and how corruption damages all Arab societies, through waste, poverty- and disparity-promotion, and lower investments. They generate linkages among civil society institutions, international partners and groups such as the Arab Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption. And, they lobby incessantly with incumbent government officials to make the changes required to slow down and then reverse the continued decline and marginalization of the Arab world.
More effective fiscal controls in the Arab world are needed, AACO Executive Director Amer Khayyat said, to avert recent experiences that saw collective public- and private-sector Arab losses in global financial investments in the past year - according to some credible Arab estimates - reach as high as $2.5 trillion. Many of those losses were probably inevitable in light of the global financial crisis. However, many others reflected incompetent or corrupt investment management, in a context of a total lack of accountability.
When I asked Khayyat at the end of the gathering what struck him most about the discussions, he said it was the fact that "the problems and weaknesses of fiscal accountability and monetary oversight and controls are almost identical in every part of the Arab world."
At the technical level, the priority needs are clear, the symposium concluded. Reducing waste and corruption in Arab public funds requires oversight and accountability through updated anti-corruption laws, an independent judiciary in the context of the separation of public powers, strengthened executive branch audit institutions, trained and qualified parliamentarians, and oversight by civil society groups and mass media. Especially urgently, all Arab states should sign and ratify the 2003 United Nations global anti-corruption convention, and pass critical laws on financial disclosure and protection for whistleblowers who expose corruption.
At the political level, though, progress will come through persistent education and pressure. "The existing power structure has an interest in retaining the status quo," Khayyat told me, "but we will keep knocking on the doors of those in power."
Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
Read Full Article »