Hope for change swept across the Arab region in 2011. It was driven by a middle class newly awake to the sense that longstanding trade-offs were no longer delivering on the promise of a better life. However, disillusionment and turmoil followed the popular uprisings, along with moves to restore the status quo. Today, the only sustainable way forward is to fully engage the middle class in reshaping a future for the region far different from the recent past. The present report entitled Arab Middle Class: Measurement and Role in Driving Change contends that the middle class holds the keys to long-needed economic and political transformations, upon which genuine peace and broad prosperity will depend. It might seem unrealistic at this moment to propose a middle-class friendly reform agenda, but anti-development, and therefore anti-middle class, policies have propelled the slide into conflict. In many Arab countries, the breakdown began because of a failure to anticipate and respond to shifting middle-class expectations. This report adopts an entirely fresh approach. It contains an unprecedented narrative on the Arab region from a middle-class perspective, highlighting the essential moderating role of middle class citizens. Around the world, they have been the main drivers of successful development experiences, the backbone of democracy and the market economy, and a force for social cohesion and political stability. In Arab countries, however, little has been done to understand them, even on the basic level of defining who they are. This report takes up the challenge, using an innovative measure that combines economic and social criteria. It analyses how the middle class has fared since economic reform programmes began in the 1990s, and its links to a region-wide deficit in democratic governance. In an effort to assist the region negotiate the complexities of transition, it sets out the main premise for a new socially inclusive development model, centred on and guided by an empowered middle class, under the governance of a democratic developmental State. As the middle class gains opportunities and freedoms to flourish, the promise and hopes of all Arab citizens have a far better chance of being fulfilled.
القاهرة، مصر
