Arab Definition of Poverty

FROM THE ATLANTIC OCEAN to the Persian Gulf, from the southern shores of the Mediterranean to the Sahara wilderness, the Arab region has enormous wealth along with the deepest poverty. Over the last half century, significant strides have been achieved in impacting Arab regional poverty with the discovery and development of vast Arabian petroleum reserves. However, wide economic disparities continue.

According to the Committee for Research on Poverty (CROP), the Arab definition of poverty is “an inability of an individual to satisfy his own basic needs and the needs of his dependents.” But the reality of poverty takes different forms in the Arab world. As just one example, consider Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, which possesses 25 percent of the world's petroleum reserves.

Amid such vast wealth, according to a 2005 study by Rashid Bin Sa'd al-Baz, a professor of social sciences at Imam Muhammd Bin Sa'ud Islamic University in the Saudi capital, poverty persists. In the absence of any official governmental poverty standard, he identified the Saudi poverty level at 1,120 Saudi riyals a month. He also calculated the average Saudi citizen's income at 2,083 Saudi riyals monthly. The World Bank in 2002 calculated the Saudi per capita income at 2,260 Saudi riyals per month. If either report is correct, the average Saudi is living well above the poverty line as calculated by Sa'd al-Baz.

Yet slums have grown up around the larger Saudi cities and beggars can be seen on the streets. Acknowledging an emerging problem, in 2003 the Saudi government announced a “national strategy to combat poverty,” marking the kingdom's first official admission that poverty exists. The announcement followed a visit to the poorest neighborhoods of Riyadh Crown Prince Abdullah, who visited cramped shanties and met with families whose food comes from charities.

How to measure poverty in Saudi Arabia? One indicator would be the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, which establishes an average annual income figure for a nation's citizenry. The Human Development Index (HDI) would be perhaps a better indicator in defining Arab poverty. It is a comparative measure of income, literacy, education, life expectancy, and other factors. Another useful indicator of Arab poverty is the Gini Index, which measures the degree of inequality in a nation's distribution of family income.

Saudi Arabia's oil-based economy is strongly controlled by the ruling royal family. No poverty figures are published, but the GDP per capita is $12,000. No Gini index is reported by the United Nations. The literacy rate is 78.8 percent. The Saudi HDI improved between 1990 and 2002 from .602 to .707 to .768.