The Secretary-General of the Union of Arab Chambers, Dr. Khaled Hanafi, revealed during his speech within the activities of the high-level Arab event, “Entrepreneurship: Towards empowering people... The League of Arab States is a regional mechanism to support entrepreneurship for people with disabilities and productive families.” Which is held in Manama - Kingdom of Bahrain coinciding with the Arab Summit and the International Forum for Entrepreneurship and Investment in its fifth session. In the presence of a crowd of ministers of solidarity and development in the Arab countries, especially the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Libya. In addition to the heads of joint Arab action organizations, and under the auspices of the social sector in the League of Arab States, headed by His Excellency Dr. Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, and the Minister Plenipotentiary and Assistant Secretary-General Dr. Tariq Al-Nabulsi. The rise in poverty levels in the Arab region in 2023 compared to previous years, brought the number of poor people to approximately 130 million people, representing a third of the region’s population, with the exception of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and Libya, according to national poverty lines. These levels are expected to continue to rise over the next two years, reaching 36 percent during the year 2024.
The Secretary-General of the Federation pointed out that the Arab region recorded the highest unemployment rate in the world in 2022 at 12%, and it witnessed a slight decline in 2023 to reach 11.7% in light of efforts to revive economies after the COVID-19 pandemic. He pointed to the rise in inflation in the Arab region, reaching 14% in 2022, but it decreased in the past year and we expected it to decrease in the current year to reach 8 and 4.5%, respectively.
Dr. Khaled Hanafi considered that the transformations and developments that the Arab region is witnessing in various fields require everyone to reconsider the mechanisms and procedures for dealing with the aspirations and needs of societies with new visions, especially in the social, economic, and psychological fields. Hence, it is important to implement the social dimensions of the sustainable development goals by eliminating poverty, ensuring the rights of children and persons with disabilities, and serving social development issues related to the family, entrepreneurship, and establishing peace.
He believed that peace is the key and a condition for achieving development and progress, otherwise, we will remain stuck at square one, constantly thinking about merely healing wounds and thinking about ways to overcome disasters, unable to move forward towards achieving comprehensive social development. This delicate stage that the Arab region is going through requires more attention to weak and fragile groups and strengthening the role of the family to build promising generations who are aware of the issue of multidimensional development.
The Secretary-General noted the importance of the Second Arab Decade for Persons with Disabilities 2023-2032 and the important initiatives it includes, such as the Independent Living Initiative, the Arab plan to support their rights in epidemics and crises, as well as the classification of disability. Hence, eliminating poverty in all its dimensions is a basis for achieving the desired sustainable development, the most important aspects of which are enhancing the capabilities of people with disabilities to work and entrepreneurship, and encouraging productive families.
He explained that there are tremendous efforts by the League of Arab States to strengthen integrated social protection efforts and to focus on consolidating principles and customs related to the family, amid challenges facing the family in light of the presence of trends calling for changing those principles and values. Hence, we warn of the dangers of these calls to the family entity.
He pointed out that the Union of Arab Chambers, as the true representative of the Arab private sector, pays great attention to people of determination and productive families in order to empower them economically and socially, by working with the relevant authorities in the Arab world, in order to ensure that they obtain the opportunities and experiences that enable them to live independently. There is close cooperation between the Union of Arab Chambers and the League of Arab States in order to support people with special needs and productive families. The Union and the League of Arab States launched the Independent Living Initiative, which aims to motivate people of determination to exploit their creative energy. By developing their abilities, skills, and support in order to transform their creativity into productive projects that make them a productive segment of society qualified to “live independently.” He considered that the initiative is extremely important as it aims to encourage Arab innovators to create advanced systems, programs, and technology to serve people of determination, within a competition subject to high standards according to which the technology most appropriate to the needs of people of determination is chosen and the necessary funding is worked on.
Source (Union of Arab Chambers)
