Research & Commentary Results

Ownership of economic resources is integral to exercising agency and to assuring the human security needed to live free from fear, want, and indignity. In agrarian societies, land and its natural resources are instrumental to financial, physical, and psychological wellbeing. Yet in half the world, secure land ownership is out of reach for most females. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), there is a huge gender-based gap in holding agricultural land, including where agriculture is a vital source of livelihood. In Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Jordan, most females, regardless of their education or socio-economic status are landless. Gender-based inequalities are often rooted in cultural norms that permit and exacerbate patterns of discrimination against females within the family and in economic transactions. These discriminatory attitudes trump humanistic and moral considerations, creating and reinforcing inequality. Discrimination against females in resource ownership has far-reaching implications for their lives, their families, and society. It is imperative to combat this regressive practice to ensure a dignified life for all.

The Persian Gulf states are among the most vulnerable on earth to the effects of climate change, which makes environmental cooperation necessary for their survival. Located in one of the hottest and driest parts of the planet, the region is vulnerable to extreme heat waves, dust storms, and water scarcity. All of these will increase in frequency and severity with further climate change. Protecting the natural environment of the region is not just an ecological concern, but a security one as well. Unmitagated climate change could spur conflict over limited resources and produce waves of migrants. While the future may seem bleak, environmental cooperation also presents a unique opportunity for improving the relationship between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and Iran. Successes from cooperation on essential environmental issues could be the start of a more general rapprochement.

In a new briefing book released ahead of the U.S. elections in November, entitled Election 2020: Challenges and Opportunities for US Policy in the Middle East, MEI scholars lay out key issues across the region, highlight the U.S. interests at stake, and provide policy insights and recommendations for the path forward. 

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Dara Conduit, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Mark Heller, Syed Mohammad Ali, Gonul Tol, and Guled Ahmed.

MEI’s Paul Salem, Khaled Elgindy, and Fatima Abo Alasrar join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the Middle East as nations scramble to contain the spread of COVID-19 and the massive humanitarian and economic toll it could take on already vulnerable populations.

This week heads of state and government are gathered in New York for the UN Summits Week, during which five key summits are taking place to urge action on major challenges that continue to undermine human security globally.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is shouldering the world’s largest humanitarian caseload and most severe crises of undernourishment since World War II. Tens of millions of people in five MENA countries are struggling with chronic hunger, and millions of them are on the brink of famine. MENA has also been grappling with the world’s longest chain of consecutive regional wars every decade since the mid-20th century, now spanning nearly 75 years.

A reliable supply of freshwater is a prerequisite for sustainable socioeconomic development, as well as for sociopolitical stability and human prosperity, especially in semi-arid and arid regions of the world. The Middle East and North Africa’s freshwater resources are under immense pressures and are facing significant risks to their sustainability due to overexploitation, climate change, and interstate competition over their use that extends beyond the region’s boundaries.

It is easy to overlook the fact that food security could be an issue of concern in the Gulf Cooperation Council. After all, its member states have some of the world’s highest per capita income levels. Food supplies in the Gulf are normally abundant and stable. Were they to be disrupted, however, it could lead to food security challenges and a chain of adverse consequences for human security throughout the region.

It is a travesty that in the 21st century the construction of a mega-hydropower-generation project, the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been underway for over seven years without an independent, comprehensive transboundary Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) conducted first.

The Middle East is the world’s most arid region and the one most dependent on renewable freshwater resources that originate outside its territories. These resources are largely contained in the Nile, Euphrates-Tigris, and Jordan river basins. An international law-based approach to transboundary watercourse development and management is vital for human security and regional stability. Applying legal principles in the Nile Basin is imperative, as unilateral actions by upstream countries can harm livelihoods on a large scale in downstream countries and destabilize their economies.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will be one of the world’s regions hit hardest by climate change in the 21^st century, particularly due to increased heat and aridity. In face of these challenges, interventions in domestic agricultural sectors have the potential to offset many negative impacts on the region.

Wars in MENA are causing irreparable damage to water security and resilience to climate change in some of the region’s countries and to their viability. The continuation of this dangerous state could ultimately reinforce even deeper instability in MENA.

The impacts of climate change on Egypt’s agriculture are likely to be substantial, and will affect the millions of Egyptian women reliant on this economic activity for their livelihoods. The agricultural sector employs a large percentage of Egypt’s working women, a sector known for its low and unstable earnings. Millions of rural Egyptian women working in agriculture already suffer from poverty, and climate change will make matters worse.