Introduction

The North Africa and Middle East (NAME) region has been witnessing considerable political change since early 2011. Revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt rapidly drove leaders out of power. In Libya, Kaddafi's loyalists have also come to power. In Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, there is great ferment and governments are trying to maintain control of the country. Other countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Jordan are implementing new social and constitutional rules to preempt possible uprisings. Many experts argue that the Arab Spring is caused by non-democratic regimes that have not responded to popular aspirations. Specifically, social inequalities could be the basis for the population's uprising. In this chapter, we explore the economic and social performance of the NAME countries in order to examine the validity of the analysis that links inequalities to the uprisings.

The debt crisis affected developing countries throughout the 1980s and resulted in a considerable slowdown in the rate of economic growth in the countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Economists and policymakers concluded that macroeconomic stability is a necessary condition for recovery. Macroeconomic stability was part of the reform package that came to be called the Washington consensus (Williamson, 1989). The policies embedded in this consensus were implemented in part as conditions attached to loans granted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Meanwhile, during the 1990s, developing countries particularly in Latin America and SSA were still facing economic stagnation. These developing countries were facing a deterioration of public services and serious damage to their education and health services (Cornia et al, 1988). These results led economists and policymakers to shift their attention to policies that could improve, simultaneously, human conditions and macroeconomic stability (Desai, 2007).

During the 1990s there was increasing attention to the level of social development in developing countries. Hulme (2009) surveys developments that resulted in the crystallisation of ideas regarding the importance of social progress in developing countries. These ideas regarding social development were the result of an extensive range of studies. As an illustration, the Human Development Reports ranks countries according to their level of social development. The World Development Report for 1990 also concentrated on the theme of poverty. Meanwhile, the UN, during the 1990s, organised a number of international conferences to analyse various aspects of social achievements.