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CONTENTS:
The Recent Past
Current Objectives
I. Developmental
Objectives
A. Political (and
Social) Development
B. Cultural (and
Social) Development
1. Education
2. Cultural Development of Women
C. Food Production
D. Population
II. International Relations Objectives (p. 2)
A. Intellectual
Isolation of the Arab World
B. Political
Instability
Strategy
Conclusion
The Recent Past
The events of 1958 must have seemed almost as cataclysmic to our
program managers at that time as those of 1967 seem now. A promising program in Iraq was stopped cold, and Syria, Jordan
and Lebanon endured severe turbulence. Yet it was the June war that dealt the most severe blow to our
programs. Operation Janus
of five years ago was conducted just before the June war, and it is
instructive to review the optimism with which potential program
possibilities were viewed.
Projects in Iraq were slowly reviving at that time, the Syrian
program was thriving, and Jordan looked like a Middle East success story.
It was anticipated
that a straightforward development program in agriculture,
education, public administration, economic and social research and
development, industrial and business development, population and culture
would be pursued throughout the coming decade. Within this balanced program, the share of agriculture was expected to decrease
from 27 to 10 per cent, and that of education from 50 to 35 per cent,
while the shares of economic and social research and development, public
administration, business and industrial development, population and
cultural projects would increase by minor amounts. Essentially the Field Office expected to make relatively modest
changes in a balanced program with developmental objectives of the sort
known broadly in the International Division.
The June war was a shock followed by a lingering illness of increasing severity. In
Jordan many of the gains from the successful development of the planning
process were wiped out due to a dispersion of key people and a loss of
the most fertile and productive lands of the country. The planning process became a search for short-run viability
rather than long-run development. Other
projects in Jordan suffered similar debilitating effects from the
scattering of Jordan's intellectual resources. This process has in a way worsened with the increasing division
of the country over the commando issue. Only in the last six months has the government regained full
control of what is left of the country and in doing so it alienated many
Jordanian intellectuals. Jordan
remains a country with a relatively high proportion of educated
citizens, but many of them seek or have already found employment in U.N.
agencies, the developed countries, and the skill-starved areas of the
Arabian peninsula.
In 1969, Foundation programs in Syria and Iraq ceased almost
completely. The loss of
programming opportunities in those two key countries of the Middle
Eastern region reduced operational possibilities essentially to Jordan
and Lebanon, plus a rather separate program in Saudi Arabia. The addition of Iran and the area covered by the Egyptian office
to the purview of the Middle East field office added some scope for
planning a regional program, but operating conditions remained so
difficult that in 1970 Wayne Fredericks asked the staff to reflect on
the reasons the Foundation should continue to operate in the Middle
East.
This set of circumstances goes far toward explaining why the
Foundation was unable to pursue the program objectives outlined in Don
Kingsley's paper of November 7, 1968, with the vigor it would have liked.
That paper, entitled
"An Approach to Foundation Programming in the Middle East,”
should be read in conjunction with this one, so I will here only
summarize the five major target areas designated:
(1) food production; (2) population control; (3) intellectual and
functional isolation of the Middle East; (4) patterns and methods of
thought in the Middle East; and (5) political and legal development.
These concepts did guide the Foundation's program for the next
three years, but operating conditions were such that the Foundation was
not always able to generate a full range of desirable projects. The
expenditure of funds in Kingsley's five major program areas over the
three-year period 1968-71 can be roughly categorized as follows:
1.
Food
Production -- $1,850,000. This largely consisted of the Arid Lands Agricultural
Development program, which was our major activity over this period, plus
a grant to the Egyptian Institute of Land Reclamation.
2.
Population
-- $470,000. A series of
grants was made in Egypt for research into reproductive biology and to
the Institute of Statistical Studies and Research for demographic work. A regional population seminar was also funded in Iran.
3.
Intellectual
and functional isolation of the Arab world -- $884,000. In this category fell all English language grants, the
Arab-American dialogues, and the social science research grants.
4.
Patterns
and methods of thought -- $ 500,000. This
included our work in science education, statistics, and computer
science.
5.
Political
instability -- $3,750,000. These grants were a
continuation of our work in the public
administration field, except for a grant in support of
the Faculty of Law at Lebanese University, and represented an
indirect approach to problems of political stability. The activities
included work on tax administration in the Ministry of Finance in
Lebanon, a graduate program in development administration at AUB, grants
to the Civil Service Board in Lebanon, support for the Faculty of
Economics and Commerce at the University of Jordan, business
administration at the American University in Cairo, and work with the
Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh and with the CAOA in Egypt.
Specific
grants and FAP's since 1952 are listed in Appendix I.
Current Objectives
The overriding factor affecting the development process in the
Middle East continues to be the Arab-Israeli conflict, now complicated
by increasing Russian diplomatic and military penetration. The resulting serious strain on the relations between the Arab
world and the West carries with it important implications for the
objectives and strategy of the Foundation's program in the region.
Objectives in the realm of international
relations are consequently
more prominent in our program than is the case in most of the regions
where the Foundation works. These
objectives are sometimes pursued directly through projects with
the primary objective of improving intercultural understanding, but they also affect the
selection of program opportunities in the development field, and the
manner in which projects are carried out.
The discussion of our objectives is consequently divided into two
parts, those of a developmental and those of an international relations nature. There is naturally a considerable area of overlapping of these
objectives. The priorities we assign to project opportunities within our
program result from our assessment of their combined impact on the two
fields. One could visualize
a matrix of developmental and international relations objectives in
which a project scoring in the middle range of each would have a higher
priority than one in the higher range on one scale and the lower range
on another.
In this paper we have not attempted to deal with program
objectives and strategy with respect to Iran. That will require a separate effort and must await the
development of further information if it is to be meaningful. To date only marginal grants and awards have been made in Iran
outside of the agriculture field, and this pattern is unlikely to change
soon.
This outline of objectives is a recent formulation, but much of
its conceptual background stems directly from the Kingsley paper.
I. Developmental Objectives
A. Political (and Social) Development
One of our primary objectives in the Middle East is to learn to
understand and deal with the processes of political and social
development. The region is
rich in diversity, composed of large and small countries, over- and
under-crowded, relatively poor and oil-rich, but sharing two important
elements of cultural heritage: Islam and the Arabic language.
It is a region where, except for Egypt, nationalism is of recent
origin and the boundaries of states have been drawn and redrawn within
the memory of living men, often by foreign powers with minor concerns
for the ethnic or cultural homogeneity of the peoples lumped together. It is no wonder that primary loyalties are often not to the
country of birth, but to families, tribes, religious communities and
ancestral lands, and evoke a fervor often underestimated by men of
the West.
Kingsley caps his discussion of the chronic political instability
of the area by citing, in addition to "the tensions inherent in a
political order comprising a number of too-small, artificially created states," four significant contributing
elements:
1.
"the
extremely low level of social mobilization, making politics a parlor
game of intrigue played by a few leading families or military figures;
2.
imperfect
perception and acceptance of the importance of the rule of law,
particularly in its constitutional aspects;
3.
lack of
executive capacity to deliver expected and required services or even to
maintain the security of the State;
4.
lack of
training and experience among political leaders, parliamentarians and
diplomats."
These are elements of instability at a national level, where a foreign
foundation has but limited capacity to act. Most of
our recent
efforts in this field have been in aid of improving executive capacity
through projects in public administration, but we have also attempted to
come to grips with the operational possibilities in the field of law and
development.
During the past two years, the Program Adviser on Public
Administration has evaluated our work with institutes of public
administration (see Roy Jumper, "Evaluative Studies" 1-5 and
''Summary and Conclusions"). A two-day staff seminar, assisted by four outside consultants,
was held on public administration programs in the Middle East in
February of this year. (A
summary of the discussion is contained in Appendix II-A.)
We are thus well into the process
of defining the priority this field of activity will have in
future work, but have yet to formulate a firm position. It
is apparent from the reports and discussions to date that the field will
receive a smaller proportion of our
budget, as described in Appendix II-B.
In the field of law and development, explorations are continuing
into program opportunities appropriate to a foreign foundation. Modest projects exist
or are being developed in legal education and legal research on
development problems, as described in Appendix III A. A more ambitious attempt to enter the field as outlined in
Appendix III-B has been shelved, at least temporarily.
Programs designed to provide training and experience for
political leaders, parliamentarians and diplomats, Kingsley's point 4
above, have thus far been small and largely confined to the latter group. Although
we will want to be alert to opportunities for effective action in this
field, we doubt they will be so abundant as to be a major claim on our resources.
Perhaps our most significant impact on political development in
the future will result from research by others and ourselves on national
integration and inter-group relations. This would include the legal research mentioned above, and a
project currently underway in Lebanon to analyze the political and
social system of that relatively successful Middle Eastern country
(Appendix IV). Other
research opportunities dealing with the motivations of youth and the
evolution of the Lebanese education system from private to public
control are under discussion and could have useful contributions to make
to our understanding of political development and modernization.
These interests
lead naturally to a concern for
the development of the social
sciences in the region and
the organization of research processes. This involves a long-range program to expand the base
of information and
analysis available to decision makers, and as
such can appropriately be
viewed under the political development heading,
but it could be considered
with equal validity under
the heading of
social development.
The social science focus involves us in three types of project
activity: those designed to develop, organize and use research capacity by:
1.
strengthening
the social sciences generally and bringing social scientists into a more
constructive relationship with each other and with developmental
agencies;
2.
assisting
in the organization of existing research capacity for problem-focused
work; and
3.
seeking
solutions to development problems through descriptive, analytical and
theoretical research conducted and/or commissioned directly by
the Foundation.
These
projects are summarized in Appendix V.
(Continued)
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