Azita Berar is Director Policy of the Global Labor Organization (GLO), and Senior Fellow, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

GLO Policy Brief No. 5
Theme 2: Inequalities and labor markets
Theme 4: Youth employment and participation

Appraising the youth uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa

“Ten years on, too early to say ?!“

by Azita Berar

It is ten years since  several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), were swept by waves of peaceful youth-led protests, longing  for economic and social justice and political freedoms. These uprisings, also called the “Arab Spring”, eventually led to the fall of long established leaders in some countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya), ushered attempts of reform in others (Morocco, Algeria, Jordan), and stalled  in  protracted and violent civil strife in others (Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen) where competing external interventions have compounded internal polarizations.

In this Policy Brief, I argue that the transformational impact of the “Arab Spring” process is more complex, global and open-ended than is generally acknowledged.
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Ten years on: reflecting on root causes and policy outcomes of the “Arab Spring”

• It has become a common practice, especially on anniversaries such as this one, to revisit the original demands that drove the Arab uprisings at the end of 2010 and throughout 2011 and to measure the progress achieved.  But could we or should we assess the outcomes of revolutions, social movements and uprisings by establishing a balance sheet to score successes and failures?  To identify winners and losers? Could we attribute responsibilities for these diverging and complex outcomes in different settings?

• Ten years on,- notwithstanding the specific circumstances and dynamics in each country-, the impressions of an unfinished agenda, of an aborted revolution, of stagnation or even backpedaling predominate. These sentiments have replaced the worldwide jubilation, admiration and support that poured then into the symbolic seeds of these youthful uprisings: Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia, the town of M. Bouazizi’s tragic self-immolation and the Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt.

• There are many outstanding questions regarding the “Arab Spring”. There is still an unsettled debate for example as how to qualify these uprisings: social movement, political revolt, revolution or any other denomination?

• Regarding the substance of claims that filled the placards carried by young protestors across the region, the twin themes of “Freedom and Equity” predominated, revealing a mix of deeply rooted political, economic and social grievances.

• Chief amongst the socio-economic grievances voiced by young women and men throughout the region, was the demand for “jobs”, more precisely, for “decent work”. The desperate self-immolation of Abu Azizi, a young street vendor in the small town of Sidi Bouzid, which sparked the waves of protests in Tunisia, was symbolic on more than one count. It epitomized the plight of the informal economy, the only source of jobs and livelihoods for a majority of the workforce, in all the dimensions of precarity and insecurity associated with it. The eldest son of a family of disenfranchised small land-owner, he had to abandon his early efforts of farming and after multiple attempts to find decent formal jobs in the town he had come to settle in, he resorted to selling vegetable and fruits on a cart, with funds borrowed, to cater for himself and the family of six. He also had to struggle all along to finish his own schooling and have his siblings go to school. As a street vendor, he was subject to continuous harassment by local authorities on various grounds including for presenting a permit that later was confirmed that he did not need. The situation of  informal economy workers is not much different today. Informality is on the rise with the continued youth employment crisis in the region. The COVID-19 induced economic slowdown has increased poverty including working poverty. The various relief and compensation packages, seldom take into account work and income losses and access to health and social protection of those who live and work in conditions of informality.

• The tragic event also gave a human face to the millions of young women and men in the region, who each year, upon finishing school, struggle to find a decent job and a meaningful place in the society. Ten years on, youth unemployment rates remain as stubbornly high, in all of the MENA region, as a decade ago; sadly, the highest in the world[1]. Difficulties in school to work transitions affect all strokes of youth including the university graduates. The “decent work” deficits are also manifest in more significant indicators, such as high incidence of inactivity and discouraged labour and low pay jobs amongst youth.  Across all these indicators, youth are affected disproportionately,  compared to their relative weight in the population and young women consistently, at a higher disadvantage. The gender gap is significant signaling pervasive segregation and discrimination in numerous sectors. In addition, women shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid care labour, in view of the limited availability of affordable and accessible social infrastructure for child and elderly care.

• While the demographics in the region, in particular the youth bulge, explain the pressure on labour markets, they do not excuse the poor performance in youth transitions. There is a collective political responsibility of policy actors in public and private spheres in the region for, gradually but surely, missing out on the short and irreversible window of opportunity that the “youth dividend” represents. The same dividend that many analysts consider, as a key success factor in promoting the “East Asian Tigers”’ economic miracle[2].   

• Despite all the soul-searching that was undertaken in the wake of youth protests a decade ago, internally, as  well as by international institutions and development partners, the main course of  economic and social strategies, have  not changed fundamentally.
• Scholars of the region had pointed then to the gaps and needed direction of change to deliver on more and better job-friendly and inclusive outcomes. The kinds of structural changes in economic strategies that were advocated, such as supporting an endogenous Research and Innovation (R&I) capacity  and  a genuine industrial policy redressing the exclusionary nature of current privatization policies, as well as  better negotiating  terms of  integration in the global economy, have not been followed suit.

• The discursive mea culpa of international financial institutions for the neglect of the social and human side of the equation[3] , was not followed through either with action or support for the adoption of alternative macro-economic frameworks.[4]

• Whilst in the first few years after the uprisings, the region saw a flurry of projects and increased development cooperation dedicated to youth employment, gender equality and in support of reform and inclusion agendas, these did not amount to a significant change in policy priorities and approaches.  Investments in access to health, in quality education, in inclusive skills’ training opportunities and for  extending capacities for implementation and institutional development have not matched the needs. Even in Tunisia which, by all accounts, has had a most peaceful and successful transition to date , thanks to the strength of its social institutions[5], policy reform and implementation have become captive of protracted consultations, political balancing and frequent changes in ministerial assignments.

• On the objective of democratization, the score may seem even weaker, and the space that was created and occupied seem to have closed or significantly shrunk. Aside from the Tunisian exception, elsewhere  coercive measures and repression,  and sometimes, serious breaches of human rights, seem to have won over. The no-choice policy narrative of  “radical Islamism” or “autocracy” prior to the Arab uprisings  is gradually replaced by another no-choice,  that of either “chaos” or “autocracy”.

• However, it will be wrong to limit the legacy of the Arab Spring to these considerations, as fundamental as they are. The unmet aspirations have not de-legitimized the original drive. The acquired experience of new citizenship rights, of holding the rulers accountable and  the claims of “dignity”, “justice” and other non-quantifiable transformational values, awakened by the 2010-2011 protests, are vivid. The more recent rounds of protests in Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon, show that these demands and expectations, resurface recurrently and occupy the space that can be occupied. Each time, the agenda of demands is pushed into new spaces and in more creative ways.

Shouldn’t we look at “Arab Spring”, its triggers and outcomes, by situating it more globally ?

• Most people analyze the “Arab Spring” through an “essentialist” lens, explaining its rise and demise from the specific historical and geopolitical  conditions in Middle East and North Africa. There is another perspective to consider:  that of the chain of protests against inequalities and backlashes of globalization that have sparked indifferent geographies and succeeded each other throughout the last decade.

• We should recall that the youth uprisings in MENA followed shortly the 2008 global economic financial crisis that caused global recession and slowdown, with massive impacts on jobs. The global crisis was revelatory of another, that of an unprecedented youth employment crisis. The “Arab spring” was preceded by the 2009 “Green Uprising” in Iran,  and followed by numerous  bouts of similar protests on the other shores of the Mediterranean and beyond.  Such as those by the “Indignados” starting in Spain, or “Occupy Wall Street” for example, that developed in the following months and years and spread worldwide. The reference by the “Occupy” movement to the “Tahrir moment”[6], clearly shows the catalytic role that the “Arab Spring” played in the string of social protests movements in the early years of the decade.

• While the local dynamics and demands differed, there were several  common denominators amongst these youth-led leaderless movements. First, was a loud outcry against inequalities and neo-liberal policies that shaped the globalization, in particular for failing to deliver on the goals of full and decent employment and on social inclusion and mobility agendas. Another common demand was the quest for new forms of participatory democracy and for creating new forms of local empowerment as a means to rebuild trust in the institutions. Unsurprisingly, in the midst of another global crisis, that of COVID-19, these demands have re-emerged creating a new momentum for  paradigm shifts.

• The Arab Spring also acted as a catalyst to the emergence of yet another phenomenon, that of  “youth agency” in global governance. Several international resolutions and calls for actions spearheaded by the United Nations System were adopted in direct response to the youth employment crisis[7] revealed by the 2008 financial crisis and echoed through the 2010-2011 “Arab Spring”. Ever since, inviting youth as a distinct stakeholder in the policy conversation and  promoting youth voice and engagement in consultative and advisory formats, in various forums related to sustainable development or to peace building agendas has become a new standard pattern. The organization and institutionalization of numerous youth fora along global, regional and national policy making conferences, the growth of new youth-led or youth-centered organizations in all regions and their engagement by multiple stakeholders, governments, private sector, civil society and academia, show the road traveled in less than a decade.

Ten years is a short period in a historical perspective.But what is an adequate time frame to appraise the impact of the “Arab Spring” ?  There is a famous quote attributed to the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. When asked in early 1970’s about the influence of the French Revolution, he is reputed to have said: ‘Too early to say!’

The 2010-2020 decade joins two major global crises. The 2008 global financial crisis followed by the austerity policies adopted since 2010, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These crises triggered massive social and economic meltdowns, waves of social and political protests and alternative ideas looking into the future. In this broader perspective, how to appraise the impact of  the “Arab Spring”, in the region and globally ? Certainly in more complex terms and it is “Too early to say”.
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[1] In 2020, the youth unemployment rate in North Africa stood at 30 percent compared to the world average of 13,6 percent. For all indicators, see various editions of ILO, Global Employment Trends for Youth.
[2] There is a growing body of empirical evidence on the subject since the original work by D.E.  Bloom & J.G. Williamson, Demographic Transitions and Economic Miracles in Emerging Asia, was published in 1997.
[3] Momani, B and Lanz, D (2014) Shifting IMF Policies Since the Arab Uprisings, Centre for International Governance Innovation, Policy Brief no. 34.
[4] Mohammed Mossallam, The IMF in the Arab world: Lessons unlearnt, SOAS, University of London, December 2015.
[5] The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet composed of the UGTT (the Tunisian General Labour Union), UTICA (the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts), Tunisian Human Rights League and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers, was awarded the 2015 Noble Peace Prize for its decisive contribution to consolidate democratic gains and a peaceful constitutional settlement.
[6] The organizers of the Occupy Wall Street posted in their July 2011 web-post: Are you ready for a “Tahrir moment”? The expression has been used multiple times since.
[7] See  ILO, 2012 The youth employment crisis: A call for action. Adopted by tripartite constituents from ILO’s 189 members. ILO subsequently led the for formulation and launch in 2016 of a Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, a joint UN system wide initiative and multi-stakeholder partnership.

Note: The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of the GLO, which has no institutional position.
Featured image: Mohamed Bouazizi

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Azita Berar is Director Policy of the Global Labor Organization (GLO), and Senior Fellow, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

GLO Policy Brief No. 4 – Theme 3. Future of Work – Covid-19

From “Future of Work” to “Building Better”: 2021, the year of a Global Policy Rethink ?

by Azita Berar

A year ago, 2019 ended with a pick in analyses, forecasts and policy debates on what the “Future of Work” would or should look like. Hopes and fears were expressed  about the implications of the latest technological innovations , labelled  “Industry 4.0”, for labour markets and more fundamentally for society and humanity. It is bewildering to see how, in less than 10 months, since the onset of  the COVID-19 pandemic as a global threat, the center of focus of both analysis and policy has radically shifted to  entrenched inequalities and vulnerabilities and the deep running fault lines in our political and economic systems.

As 2020 closed down, we submit that the COVID-19 crisis has done more in generating a new momentum for paradigm shift and for indicating the avenues for a social reconstruct than all the preceding years of analysis, forecasts and policy negotiations around the Future of Work.
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What we should know

• 2019 ended with a flurry of publications, national and international policy discussion on the “Future of Work” engaging  multiple stakeholders. These discussions had started mid-decade, triggered by the rapid acceleration in a new and – some argued, radically different- generation of technological innovations. [1] Hopes were raised by limitless opportunities that these frontier innovations could bring to all sectors of economy, work and life. Fears concerned “externalities”, in particular regarding the potential job destruction  and displacement effects of these technologies as well as the slow pace with which, new norms of governance, including  cross-border rules, were developed. The new social construct was lagging far behind the pace of technological innovations and their adoption in advanced and emerging economies.

• A year later, as 2020 has closed, it is astounding to see the tremendous shift in perspective and policy debate. The COVID-19 pandemic humbled the humanity by exposing its fragility on a planetary scale. It left no aspect of life and no sector of the economy unaffected. The pandemic is still raging,  forcing continuous reevaluation of human losses and multi-faceted political, social, economic and emotional fallouts. In this Brief, we are not focusing on the sobering and evolving socio-economic impact [2], but on what is certain: the powerful revelatory impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has already had in 2020.

• The pandemic shed light- like no other crisis before- on the deep running inequalities and vulnerabilities within societies and across countries and continents. By accelerating pre-existing trends and  exposing  the fault lines on a scale and in such a compelling manner that left no room for denial, the crisis brought to the fore, the inadequacy of policy paradigms, the need for alternative policy approaches and the quest for a better and fairer world.

• The unfulfilled promises of globalization, the environmental exhaustion, the rising inequalities in distribution of wealth and income, the crisis of full and decent employment in all of its facets, as much as the persisting structural discriminations based on gender, race, refugee or migrant status, were not a revelation per se. These trends have been well documented and discussed in policy and experts’ circles, over the years. In 2020,  since and as the result of the global spread of COVID-19, the statistics and data buried in numerous analytic and policy reports came to life and wore  human faces, making  it an everyday visible reality for everyone across the globe.

• The pandemic showed the insecure work and life patterns of those women and men  who work in  the informal economy, 62 percent of the global workforce, who cannot exercise social distancing, apply basic hygiene preventive rules, access health services, or stop work under conditions of lockdown, with no access to alternative income support  and safety nets. School closures vividly exposed, the deep divides in access to quality education and to digital technology for millions of children and students enrolled at all levels of education.

• It was sobering to observe that in 2020, the year that marks the 25^th anniversary of the first World Conference on Women and the launch of a most comprehensive platform of action for promoting gender equality, women  in advanced and developing economies alike, remained the default unpaid care takers at home, and occupied most of “essential” frontline occupations in underpaid sectors with part time and insecure contracts.

• Youth who have not fully recovered from the employment crisis in the wake of 2008/09 global crisis, have been once more, massively  impacted, this time with a twin challenge of completing their education under conditions of lockdown, and  facing the prospect of  another protracted transition and stalled mobility into work, adulthood and autonomy.

• Positive trends recorded in some of global indicators of the 2030 SDG agenda, such as reduction in poverty, hunger and malnutrition have  reversed course, with a huge humanitarian crisis looming in the horizon.

• But the pandemic also brought the “Future of Work” faster and closer to home. The expansion of remote and online work, pointed to a new dualism in the labour markets,  jobs that can be performed remotely and online and those renamed- essential services and critical jobs – that could not. The expansion of online teleworking , beyond the flexibility and resilience it enables, is forcing managers and employees alike to re-consider the value of inter-personal and social interactions and to re-think the nature of future workplace arrangements.

• As demand expanded exponentially for the digital delivery sector and other on-demand services, the pandemic exposed the ambiguity in the   prevailing business models and employment relationships in these sectors.  In some instances, this increased visibility of these types of  new non-standard forms of employment accelerated the adoption and  implementation of new legal and social protection norms including rise in minimum wages.

• More significantly, the COVID-19 crisis, by laying bare inequalities and socio-economic divides of various types, questioned the fundamental underpinnings  of policies and policy paradigms enacted over last decades, that allowed and deepened such uneven and unfair outcomes. In short, the pandemic diffused across societies, a new sense of urgency and a moral imperative for a rethink of policy.

Will 2021 be the inflection point to unleash and accelerate such a paradigm shift?

• 2020 was an exceptional year of reflection  and soul-searching on what is essential and critical to humans? On the relationship between humans, nature and science? What determines resilience to future shocks and what scope should there be for national sovereignty,  and for inter-dependence, solidarity and cooperation?

• Exceptional measures and  massive stimulus packages, were announced and partially deployed in major economies,  to deal with the most immediate impact of the pandemic and to prevent a catastrophic socio-economic collapse. These measures were exceptional  not only in size, surpassing tens of Trillion dollars already in June 2020, but also in the range and types of policy levers used. There was not much hesitation to push aside stringent prudential rules introduced by the same economies and institutions with respect to the debt to GDP ratio, or the time limit for the debt payments, for example. [3]

• Beyond immediate relief and recovery packages, calls to “Reset Capitalism”, “Renew the social contract”, reinvent solidarity, rethink public- private cooperation…. are emanating from diverse stakeholders with often diverging interests. More significantly, the importance of  interventionist role of the state in sustaining the economy and jobs and in leading environmental transitions, is rehabilitated and valued. The demand for a stronger role of public policy and  public investment in health, education, universal social protection, basic income have resurfaced to the top of mainstream policy debate and agenda.

• The serious consideration in policy circles and political campaigns, of  New Green Deal proposals, Public  Job Guarantee schemes , local community development strategies in the United States alone, is a testimony of the extent to which, the pendulum has swung away from orthodox market fundamentalism.  Although these ideas are not new, they have  come out of background, gained in vigor and adherence in a short period of time.

• It is yet early to judge, how far and how bold will the recovery plans go and what will be the scope of this “rethink”, beyond remedial and recovery responses. Will  recovery plans, as announced and promised, become accelerators of digitalization and  transition to low carbon economy and embed fiscal policies that promote greater equality and “just transitions”? 

• Are these circumstantial  crisis-induced responses that will deflate once the health hazard and the ensuing economic recession are seen to have been brought  under control? Will once again, reform be stalled and austerity replace stimuli, as in the aftermath of 2008/9 crisis.  Or will it be really different this time, as more and more parties think that a return to status quo ante is not an option, and the future cannot be about building back but building better and different!
  

Will 2021 be seen as an inflection point as much as 1945 ushered a new era of social innovation and reconstruct, following the devastation of the second World War?

• In the current global political context of divided societies, weakened democracies, growing mistrust in institutions and fragmented multilateralism, the odds for a collective political will to emerge and to lead a new wave of reform, may not seem very high.  However the pandemic and its consequences have also awakened and re-mobilized forces of citizenship, advocates of participatory and solidary development and democracy and re-invigorated labour and social movements. These factors combined have generated such high  demands and societal expectations that cannot be left unanswered and  are not ready to recede.

• Paradigm shifts do not occur overnight, however the COVID-19 crisis by sweeping away with such speed a few more myths associated with market fundamentalism and unleashed globalization, has brought us so much closer to the imperative and possibility of  building a new social trust.
  

The year 2020 has closed with the pandemic still ravaging lives, economies and societies across the globe. Humanity is entering 2021 with the renewed  hope in science and in new vaccines- which signal that the end of this pandemic might be in sight- but uncertain about how far away and at what cost. More significantly, the COVID-19 crisis has re-ordered our value system and reshaped the policy debate  by pointing out that  the problem is not technology but the deep political, economic and social divides. The shock and response have created a new momentum for a fundamental policy rethink and action in a way that all the preceding discussions on the Future of Work had not succeeded.  Will the momentum be seized? What is certain is that 2021 will be looked at as the inflection year, where a new course seemed possible through a broad understanding of human agency, embracing multi-layered social mobilizations and political leaderships.
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[1] The Policy Brief No. 1 on Automation, inequality and jobs, in this Policy Forum, included references to major reports on Future of Work published since 2013. It also highlighted that most analyses overlooked the specific dynamics of technological adoption and labour markets in low income countries with large swaths of rural and informal economy workers.
[2] For regular updates and estimates see the following websites: COVID-19 Worldwide Dashboard – WHO Live World Statistics: Socio-economic impact of COVID-19 | UNDP; ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. 6th edition.
[3] It should be noted however that this flexibility, sits in sharp contrast to the  lack of solidarity and international financial support to fiscal policies in particular, in middle-income developing countries. Coordinated stimuli response and use of multilateral institutional mechanisms have been disappointing. In particular the combined response of G20, World Bank and IMF are falling short of providing the financial and fiscal space needed for an adequate COVID-19 response in much of mid-income developing countries.

NOTE: The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of the GLO, which has no institutional position.

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