Set includes 2002 and 2003 Arab Human Development Reports. Publishing Agency: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

"An accurate diagnosis of a problem is an important part of the solution. It is precisely for this reason that the Regional Bureau for Arab States has commissioned a group of distinguished Arab intellectuals to produce the Arab Human Development Report. The wealth of unbiased, objective analysis it contains is part of our contribution to Arab peoples and policy-makers in the search for a brighter future. The report shows that Arab countries have made significant strides in more than one area of human development in the last three decades. Nevertheless, the predominant characteristic of the current Arab reality seems to be the existence of deeply rooted shortcomings in the Arab institutional structure. These shortcomings are an obstacle to building human development. The report summarizes them as three deficits relating to freedom, empowerment of women, and knowledge. These deficits constitute weighty constraints on human capability that must be lifted. From a positive perspective, the realisation of human development in the Arab world requires transcending current shortcomings, and even transforming them into their opposites, i.e. advantages enjoyed by all Arabs, assets all Arab countries can be proud of in the Third Millennium."--(p. 180).

The report looks at the progress Arab countries have made in human development over the past three decades. To facilitate further development the report emphasises the need to overcome shortcomings in the Arab institutional structure. These relate to freedom of thought, religion, education, free elections and justice, the empowerment of women, and knowledge.

The Arab Human Development Report aims at building human development in the Arab world. Gender inequality is generally recognized as one of the main obstacles to development in the Arab Region. This volume of the report focuses on the history and contemporary dynamics of Arab women's economic, political, and social empowerment. It details the processes in which gender impacts on Arab development while suggesting means of overcoming some of the challenges and building more equitable societies.

With its emphasis on the primacy of change, this study arrives at a particularly auspicious moment, as the Middle East continues to be convulsed by the greatest upheavals in generations, which have come to be known as the Arab Spring. Originally prepared as the tenth-anniversary volume of the UNDP's Arab Human Development Report, Arab Human Development in the Twenty-first Century places empowerment at the center of human development in the Arab world, viewing it not only from the vantage point of a more equitable distribution of economic resources but also of fundamental legal, educational, and political reform. The ten chapters in this book follow closely this political economy framework. They look back at what Arab countries have achieved since the early 2000s and forward to what remains to be done to reach full development. Supported by a wealth of statistical material, they cover the rule of law, the evolution of media, the persistence of corruption, the draining of resources through armed conflict, the dominance and increase of poverty, the environment, and religious education. The concluding chapter attempts an inventory of the world literature and different experiences on democratic transition to explore where the region could be heading. This critical and timely study is indispensable reading to development specialists and to Middle East scholars and students alike, as well as to anyone with an interest in the future trajectory of the region.