Analyzing the components of economic development in Arab countries in light of the third millennium development goals

The beginning of the twenty-first century witnessed an increasing interest in studying the determinants of economic development and the mechanisms for achieving the third millennium development goals, which were approved by the United Nations and the countries of the world - including the Arab countries - pledged to work to achieve their goals. Although the efforts made by most Arab countries to keep pace with the fierce global competition in this regard, the impact of these efforts on achieving development goals is still limited, which forces these countries to challenge the traditional methods and develop new development mechanisms that are more consistent with the contemporary variables. In that regard, the current study aimed at analyzing the pillars and challenges of economic development in the Arab countries to explore opportunities for its development in a way that would help decision-makers and development policy- designers to build an integrated strategy to achieve development goals in the Arab region, considering both the common characteristics of the region's countries and the special nature of each country separately. The analysis mainly depended on the United Nations reports to assess development goals and global and regional development indicators issued by the World Bank and the Arab Monetary Fund, and the global competitiveness reports issued by the World Economic Forum.