COMMENTS FROM AN AUTHOR: ENGAGING THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005 ON WOMEN

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-62
Author(s):  
Islah Jad
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
First Report ◽  
Human Development Report

I think it is safe to say that the Arab Human Development Report 2005 (AHDR 2005) was the first report to be criticized and even attacked by its own authors. Some contested not being “fully” the “owner” of the report because they were forced to share it with some “disappointing” partners; some attacked it for not fully representing their fundamentalist secular beliefs. Others showed their discontent with its theoretical incoherence and its clear neoliberal approach. These differing stands reflect the spectrum of conflicting views and approaches in the Arab world about women's issues; they also reflect the lack of a spirit of teamwork.

scholarly journals EDUCATING WOMEN FOR DEVELOPMENT: THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005 AND THE PROBLEM WITH WOMEN'S CHOICES

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 122a-122a
Author(s):  
Fida J. Adely
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Women's Development ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
Women And Education ◽  
Shed Light

The Arab Human Development Report 2005, the fourth in a series that has received much acclaim and stirred much controversy, takes up the issue of women's development in the Arab world. Through a careful reading and analysis of sections of the report that address education and economic participation, this paper offers a critique of the human capabilities framework that frames this report. I highlight critical tensions between the claim that providing education is an essential element of expanding choices and the assumptions embedded in discussions about women and education regarding which choices are acceptable and/or desirable. These tensions point to the persistence of values derived from the mandates of global capital, albeit in the new language of neoliberal choice, revealing that ‘human development’ does not represent a significant departure from earlier conceptualizations of development. I draw on my ethnographic research in Jordan as one example to interrogate such assumptions and to shed light on the ambiguities built into the educational project for young women today.

OVERVIEW: ENGAGING THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005 ON WOMEN

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lila Abu-Lughod ◽  
Fida J. Adely ◽  
Frances S. Hasso
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Major Obstacle ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Development ◽  
Original Report

The Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World (AHDR 2005), published in Arabic with English and French translations, was launched at the end of 2006. With a title carefully crafted to avoid Western development buzzwords like “empowerment” and to signal the inclusion of all women living in the region, it is the third in a series of detailed studies meant to unpack the themes of the original overview report that garnered both acclaim and criticism when it was published in 2002. The other two topical reports examine what were billed as “deficits” in knowledge and in freedom. This one tackles what the original report framed as the third major obstacle to the flourishing of the Arab world: the deficit in gender equality.

scholarly journals EMPOWERING GOVERNMENTALITIES RATHER THAN WOMEN: THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005 AND WESTERN DEVELOPMENT LOGICS

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 82a-82a
Author(s):  
Frances S. Hasso
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Arab World ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Arab State ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Western Development ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Nations Development

This article analyzes the Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World. I argue that the Arab Human Development Report 2005 works within a United Nations development framework that strengthens states and elites in relation to their populations. This strategy reinforces the logic of national, transnational, and feminist governmentalities. Little attention is given to oppositional movements as sources of development. The authors of the report are often caught in the contradictions of using it to make radical critiques of undemocratic Arab state regimes and repressive Western state policies. International measures such as the human development index and the “global women's rights” discourse used by the United Nations Development Programme and other organizations selectively authorize subjectivities, freedoms, and transformations and help to normalize and constitute a range of inequalities among women.

scholarly journals DIALECTS OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT: THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCUITRY OF THE ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 103a-103a ◽  
Author(s):  
Lila Abu-Lughod
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Islamic Revival ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Critical Aspects

This essay analyzes three problems with the landmark Arab Human Development Report 2005 on women as a means of reflecting on some consequences of the transnational currency of a particular “dialect” of women's rights. Given the current geopolitical context, it first asks how the report's attribution of “unique” shortcomings in the Arab world to cultural and religious factors might make it vulnerable to appropriation for dangerous arguments about “the clash of civilizations.” Second, it asks how the urban, middle-class, cosmopolitan perspective on women's lives, aspirations, and everyday conditions colors the report's analyses of education, employment, and the role of family, eliding critical aspects of political economy and ignoring alternative values. Finally, it considers how the report's reliance on the dominant secular, liberal political paradigms that this “dialect” of women's empowerment indexes—modernization, human development, and (neo)liberalism—both narrows its recommendations and limits its potential appeal, given the Islamic revival and economic problems in the Arab world.

scholarly journals Poor Women’s Empowerment and the Challenges Ahead for the Arab World

1970 ◽  
pp. 92-93
Author(s):  
Nancy Okail
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Millennium Development Goals ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
Development Goals

Increasingly, gender equality is identified as one of the most crucial elements for the overall development of any country. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) placed the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women at  the top of the development priorities. At the same time, the Arab Human Development Report (2003) sets "gender  inequality" as one of the three most significant deficiencies behind the regression of our region.

EMPOWERING GOVERNMENTALITIES RATHER THAN WOMEN: THEARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005AND WESTERN DEVELOPMENT LOGICS

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances S. Hasso
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Human Development Report ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Western Development

The researchers and writers of theArab Human Development Report 2005 (AHDR 2005)include activists, social critics, intellectuals, and feminists who aspire forizdihār(flourishing) in the Arab world “based on a peaceful process of negotiation for redistributing power and building good governance.” This passage suggests that the aims theAHDR 2005shares with the previous three volumes are to encourage state apparatuses and officials totransform themselvesby changing policies and surrendering some of the power and resources they have fortified vis-à-vis their citizenries. This article argues that rather than encouraging the rise of women or any group interested in political or social transformation, theAHDR 2005works within a U.N. development framework that strengthens states and political elites in relation to their populations by constituting the former as the causes of underdevelopment and thus the primary agents for economic, social, and political improvement.

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