By Emad Mekay
Inter Press ServiceAs international financial institutions (IFIs) race to carry economic initiatives to the Middle East, groups that monitor the spread of corporate globalisation are at risk of falling behind, raising concerns that the region could end up an unmonitored corporate playfield.
Although the newfound interest in the Middle East was kick-started by Washington's plan to transform Iraq into a free-market model for the rest of the region after its Mar. 20 invasion, several organisations were quick to follow suit.
The United States now says it has managed to convince the G8 group of the most industrialised nations, whose ministers met this weekend in France to donate funds for the reconstruction of the country.
The donors also say they plan to meet to discuss the economic future of the U.S.-occupied country, which could be held in Tokyo in mid-June.
The Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), known for its high-profile annual meetings in the alpine resort of Davos that attract the world's corporate and political luminaries, said last month it would convene an extraordinary meeting in Amman, Jordan under the theme ''visions for a shared future'', Jun. 21-23.
The move to the Middle East continued unabated last week when President George W. Bush launched a proposal for a so-called ''free trade'' agreement with countries of the Middle East that is likely to be modelled after controversial agreements like the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Among other things, that deal gives private firms the right to sue governments if their labour, health or environmental laws are seen to be barring the way to private-sector investment. The U.S.-Mideast agreement is expected to be finalised by 2013.
In Iraq, administration officials, many hailing from the private sector, are fast replacing the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, opening the oil-rich country further to corporate executives, U.S. bankers and goods.
Also, two of the most controversial institutions in the world economy, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - often accused of force-feeding strict austerity programmes and export-oriented policies on poor nations, further dragging them into poverty - say they are readier than ever to work in the region.
The organisations are working now on assessing Iraq's debt for Middle Eastern creditors, and will follow that by considering the financial needs for the reconstruction of the country.
Their Middle East presence is bound to continue, as the IMF and the Bank are slated to hold their annual meeting this September in Dubai's Gulf City.
In another telling sign, the IMF devoted the entire issue of its quarterly 'Finance and Development' magazine to the Middle East, with articles brimming with advice on how the region's countries should dismantle their social protection systems and reduce their public sectors.
The organisations' officials, including Sena Eken, assistant director in the IMF's Middle East Department, said the volatile region should focus on ''promotion policies'', ''payment methods'', ''management remuneration'' and the like, ''rather than 'hardware' such as clinics, schools, roads and wells''.
That's not all. On Jun. 21-22, an informal "mini-ministerial" meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will take place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss opening markets to a range of international goods and services, as well as resolving differences over access to medicines for poorer countries.
The meeting, one of several in the run-up to the WTO ministerial conference Sep. 10-14 in Cancun, Mexico, will include trade gurus like U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick and European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
''Obviously, the Middle East and the Muslim world are now the new tourist destinations for international financial institutions and their corporate culture,'' said Anuradha Mittal, co-director of the U.S.-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). ''It's like an economic invasion after the military invasion,'' she added in an interview.
But despite corporate globalisation's evident new interest in the Middle East, think tanks and civil society groups that monitor the IFIs and other major players appear to be dragging their feet.
The U.S.-based Centre for Global Development, which calls itself one of the few independent think tanks devoted to following globalisation trends, features no expert on Middle East economics.
And while other reputable think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Institute of International Economics (IIE) abound with experts and formal officials well grounded in security or the Arab-Israeli conflict, almost none specialise on the business side of the region or its involvement in corporate globalisation.
Civil society groups, which influence the work of the World Bank, the WTO and IMF, along with U.S and E.U. foreign trade policies in areas like Latin America, Africa and East Asia, have, by comparison, been far less outspoken on the Middle East.
They too lack programme officers or watchdog activities on the work of oil corporations, corporate executives or the IFIs in the region.
Prominent groups, like the Bank Information Center, and energetic activist organisers, like the 50 Years Is Enough network, also lack Middle East expertise and coverage.
This despite the fact the area was not far from the operations of those international economic players, even before the invasion of Iraq and the burst of interest in the area.
USAID has its biggest international offices and staff in Egypt, a country of 72 million people who have been suffering under the staggering neo-liberal economic reforms of the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak. And Israel receives more foreign aid from Washington than any other nation - more than 3.5 billion dollars annually.
Both think tanks and civil society groups cite funding and the fragility of civil society groups in the region for their failure to monitor attempts by the United States and other Western economic powers to drag the Middle East further into their orbit.
''I think there is a weakness there of course,'' said Njoki Njehu of Washington-based 50 Years Is Enough. ''It will still be a definite challenge in the future because of the limitations of civil society groups in the region and the nature of the (brutal) regimes there and how they are so unaccountable to civil society.''
One new local group is The Anti-Globalisation Egyptian Group (AGEG), whose Arabic acronym means "burning fire". In April, Wael Khalil, an activist with the group, told IPS the WEF initiative would ''play into our hands and not into their (WEF's) hands. They are creating yet another new point of mobilisation and resistance. Their efforts won't come to pass."
But with the IFIs already in the area, think tanks and civil society groups might want to consider their absence if they want to remain what they claim to be - global. .
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