Coll 54/2 'Middle East (Official) Committee: Working Party' [‎191r] (381/642)

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Economic Factors in Middle Sast Development
1, General
The Working Party has had before it, and will no doubt
continue to have, a considerable amount of detailed information
on economic, and social conditions in the countries
with which it is concerned; in addition, the papers so far
circulated have dealt in fair detail with development schemes
which have been recommended or suggested by various bodies,
such as specially appointed commissions, engineering
consultants or the Middle East Governments concerned. So far,
the aim has been to provide a largely uncritical survey of all
such schemes for each country, of necessity because the
Working Party needs the f llest possible information in
order to be able to come to an effective .judgement in
selecting in the next stage of its work those schemes which
it v/ould wish to recommend should be regarded as "first on the
list" for each country.
The purpose of this paper is to suggest that before
proceeding to this next stage of selection and recommendation,
it would be most helpful to agree and lay down for the future
guidance of the Working Party a set of basic principles
which will govern the selection of projects and ensure a
uniform and methodical treatment of each project. It is
clear that many of those to be considered have been put
forward on grounds of national prestige rather than economic
necessity. Others may be technically possible of achievements,
but economically unsound, at least for many years, or even
decades, to come. It may well be that, when the actual
decisions are taken on which projects shall be encouraged
and which shall be left over, some concessions may have to be
made to purely political considerations. But it will serve
to avoid confusion if in the first instance the Working Party's
selections and "orders of priority" are based on purely
economic considerations. Only in this v/ay will it be
possible later to come to an effective judgement of the
true economic cost of such concessions. This does not
mean that the pressing need for the resettlement of the Arab
refugees should be ignored, but in proceeding as suggested the
working party may well find that such schemes can be made
conveniently to fit in with projects which they are otherwise
able to recommend. Indeed, there is much to be said for the
thesis that schemes which are economically the soundest are those
best suited to meet the problem and to furnish a permanent and
ultimately self-supporting solution independent of further
international aid.
2. The need for criteria
The Colonial Development Working Party, in its Report,
set out what it considered to be the broad objectives of economic
policy in the Colonies and the criteria to be applied in
selecting projects. Their recommendations were endorsed by
Ministers, and should, it is suggested, form a. useful basis,
mutatis mutandis, on which the pr sent Working Party can
found its future work. Whilst not all the considerations
affecting the recommendations of the C.D.W.P. apply in the
present context, because of the difference in our relationship
with the Middle East countries, the general problem remains the
same; the broad objectives may therefore be stated as:-
(i)/