9781422283929

I NTRODUCTION S OCIAL P ROGRESS IN THE N EAR E AST

T he Near East is a land of extremes. It has extreme heat. It has extreme religious divisions. In one country there, people earn themost in the world— Qatar has an annual GDP (gross domestic product) per capita of $143,400. But the Near East also has a country with one of the lowest GDPs in the world— Yemen, where it is $3,800 per year. Yet money does not tell the whole story when it comes to measuring social progress and the health and well-being of citizens. This volume explores the level of social progress in the countries that make up the Near East: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. (For the purposes of this book, Palestine is not included because not enough data were available to rank it in the Social Progress Index.) Social progress is a society’s ability to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, create the building blocks that individuals and communities use to improve the quality of their lives, and make it possible for everyone to reach their potential. The book examines bare necessities, such as people’s access to food, water, shelter, and basic medical care; it also considers whether people are safe, receive education, and enjoy personal freedom. It considers as well the political and natural environment.

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S OCIAL P ROGRESS IN THE N EAR E AST