‘The fact that rates of extreme poverty in the Middle East have been so much lower than in any other developing region for such an extended period of time constitutes one of the biggest unsolved puzzles that confront scholars of the Middle East,’ said Dr Steven Heydemann, a senior political scientist at Smith College. Heydemann explored the various factors that may have contributed to such a mystery in a public lecture, organized jointly by the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, on 15 October.

Heydemann pointed first to the fact that between 1990 and 2011, when extreme poverty was defined as living on less than $1.25/day, its rate in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) dropped to just 10 per cent of the levels recorded in other developing regions, or less than 3 per cent of those found in sub-Saharan Africa. Heydemann suggested a number of explanations of this perplexing situation given the region’s poor economic performance. First there is the issue of data quality, as autocratic regimes often tend to underreport or distort the economic data they deliver to international institutions. However, the data factor seemed inconclusive as it did not appear significantly worse than that of other developing regions.

Another explanation pertains to informal employment. MENA’s informal sectors are the smallest among developing regions, Heydemann argued, however. He considered other potential contributing factors, such as high levels of public spending in the period from 1965 to about 1990, state-sponsored subsidy programs, informal economies, high rates of remittances, and other forms of understudied solidarity-based social networks in the region.

High wealth redistribution, subsidies, and remittances, among other factors, may have served to explain MENA’s exceptionally low levels of extreme poverty, but none of them provides scholars with an adequate explanation, Heydemann remarked. Further research on MENA’s social structures, detailed data, and in-depth studies on solidarity-based social mechanisms are needed to fill the crucial gap in explaining why levels of extreme poverty in the region have historically been so low, and why they have risen so sharply since 2011, itself adding another puzzle, he remarked.

According to 2020 data cited in Borgen Project, ‘MENA is the only region that has seen significant increases in extreme poverty. Between 2011 and 2015, extreme poverty in MENA has nearly doubled, rising from 2.1% of the population to 5%. As of 2018, an estimated 18.6 million people in the region are living on less than $1.90 per day.’ This trend requires further study of the economic and social mechanisms that may have sustained MENA’s economic resilience until the Arab uprisings when, Heydemann concluded, they likely came under great strain.

Heydemann is the Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 Professor in Middle East Studies and Director of the Program in Middle East Studies at Smith College. His lecture was part of a series of events organised on 15-16 October 2022 by the Unit of State and Political Systems Studies at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and by the Department of Politics and International Relations at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

The event also hosted Columbia University’s Lisa Anderson, who delivered a lecture on ‘The Financialization of Everything: Revisiting Capital and Coercion in the Middle East’. It also marked the launch of The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research Since the Arab Uprisings, a vital new stock-taking book edited by Marc Lynch (George Washington University), Jillian Schwedler (City University of New York, Hunter College), and Sean Yom (Temple University).