20110205
reuters

MUNICH (Reuters) - The turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries demonstrates the risk of insecurity caused by a "deficit of democracy", United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday.

He told a security conference in Munich that security brings peace and development, but "where it is absent there is chaos and uncertainty. We see this of course ... most recently in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in the Middle East".

The causes of this instability include "human insecurity, poverty, diminished or disappointed expectations, lack of good governance, corruption, ineffective governance of public institutions and deficits of democracy", the U.N. chief said.

The United Nations has been warning about the situation in the Arab world for a decade in its human development reports, Ban said, adding that the region's "problems and grievances ... represent a microcosm in too many ways of the broader world".