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Some of the Middle East’s star performers on development indicators face popular anger and dissatisfaction. So where does that leave development policy? A glance at recent data on development indicators reveals some striking figures about the Middle East. Far from lagging behind, many Middle East countries have made rapid progress on development, especially the broader “human development” areas of health and education. Even more surprising is that the countries making the biggest media splash in recent weeks are, in fact, star performers. A recent initiative gauging progress on the millennium development goals ranks Tunisia as joint first among 137 countries, while Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran are ranked joint third. Similarly, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco score as top movers on the 2010 Human Development Index , a hybrid measure of income, education and health. Significant increases in living standards, as measured by the MDGs and HDI, have not satisfied citizens’ needs and aspirations, and this raises issues on how we conceptualise, measure and promote development. The causes of unrest across Egypt and Tunisia, and the growing trouble in the Arab world, are complex, though observers attribute the situation to two major dynamics – youth unemployment and lack of political voice. But neither of these is included in prominent measures of development such as the MDGs. Unemployment among 15- to 24-year-olds in the Middle East is the highest in the world, at more than 25%. However, about two-thirds of the region’s population is now below 24 years of age. The ever-greater numbers of high school and university graduates are not being absorbed into the economy, while the private sector is not generating enough skilled positions. Employers, meanwhile, complain of poor education quality and low graduate skills. Tertiary enrolment – school leavers going to higher education – in Egypt has risen from 14% to 28% since 1990, and in Tunisia from 8% to 34%. Egyptian high school graduates account for 42% of the workforce, but 80% of the unemployed. According to the global employment trends from the International Labour Organisation , Arab countries need to generate more than 50 million jobs in the next decade just to stabilise employment. These conditions have created a large body of disaffected youth, a boiling pot of frustration that is now spilling over at governments that have failed to provide employment opportunities. The reasons for unrest aren’t all economic. Increases in literacy and education, alongside urbanisation and the expansion of the media, have extended political consciousness and broadened demands for political participation. Despite national increases in living standards, the region’s repressive, authoritarian regimes are often plagued by corruption and nepotism. Dani Rodrik , a development economist, points out that economic growth does not buy stability unless political institutions mature at the same time. This shows that widely used measures of development such as the MDGs and the HDI are, by themselves, insufficient to determine development priorities: much greater attention needs to be played to inequality, but not only inequality of income. Middle Eastern countries have had, at least until recently, one of the most equal income distributions in the world. Egypt, for example, registered a Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) of 32 in 2005, far lower than the 47 achieved by the US in the same year. This suggests that access to gainful employment and acute inequalities in political power also need to be considered. These issues are not unique to the Middle East. But the histories of countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria demonstrate that as societies transform and urbanise, aspirations grow and people expect more of their governments. However, economic inequalities within, rather than between, countries are becoming more important as the proportion of middle-income countries grow: research from the Institute of Development Studies shows there is a new “bottom billion” of 960 million poor people – 72% of the world’s poor – who live not in low, but in middle-income countries. This is a dramatic change from just two decades ago, when 93% of poor people lived in low-income countries. Such processes also pose challenges for sub-Saharan Africa. About a third of Africans live in urban areas, but by 2030 this will increase to half; and more than 60% of Africa’s population is under 25, and that will rise to 75% by 2015. About 7.2% of the region’s youth is unemployed and an additional 46.9% is either underemployed or inactive. Many African countries have substantially increased access to education, but those economies will need to start generating skilled jobs to absorb this labour. If not, will tomorrow’s educated, African youth, like those in Tunisia and Egypt today, demand resolution to these grievances by force? Millennium development goals Egypt Tunisia Development data Middle East Alasdair McWilliam guardian.co.uk