EU assistance to Arab world should aggregate security, democracy and human development

The latest G8 summit, announced unprecedented $20bn assistance programs to emerging Arab democracies in the end of May at their meeting in France. Those commitments were followed by some European leaders’ disclosure of their bilateral plans to assist Tunisian and Egyptian governments in democracy and good governance reforms. Indeed the world is keen to establish a successful transformation to the effective democracy in Moslem countries, where the dictatorships were toppled down recently.  British Prime Minister, for example, earmarked  £110m ($180m) for development over the next four years, echoing the G8 outlook on the Arab uprisings. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011531132934920499.html

However the most debatable concern is if those programs actually open a new page of partnerships with Arab countries that could be radically distinct of the past assistance experiences, when development specialists dealt comfortably “with dictatorships and democracies alike, believing that prosperity can best be created by concentrating exclusively on economic issues and institutions.” http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/20116113211917794.html

Reader discussion at information websites demonstrated how much and deeply rooted in the past is the mistrust in actual goals of such Western assistance. Arabs are proud of their revolutionary accomplishments and are dreaming of their dignity resurrected and capacity unleashed. Their voices arose against a possible Euro-US "hijacking" or "containment" of the regional movement through this type of "cheque book diplomacy". In order to demonstrate a good will to re-load the partnership priorities goals of assistance and progress indicators should be clearly articulated to make sure that

•  Assistance priorities are owned by recipients and beneficiaries themselves
•  Spending is transparent and leads to the establishment of effective system of checks and balances that ensure civic participation as actual vehicle of strategy development and implementation
• All assistances should work to generate a sense of mutually shared goals and values to lead to the creation of integrated space of equal partnership and human dignity and remove mistrust and grievances of the past.

In the meantime this discourse brings up to the critical question of legitimacy of interim institutions to receive and spend those huge assistance amounts. Should the money start being delivered before the well trusted popular representatives are elected and strong civil society engagement is guaranteed? The time and again the question comes what depends on what: electoral democracy is secured by institutional development, or the latter could only be build by means of the former?