Since June 2009, the Government of Iraq (GoI) has secured nearly a dozen major oil field technical service agreements with international oil companies (IOCs) after two highly publicized bidding rounds. The deals are seen as the cornerstone of Iraq’s economic development in the coming years. While future oil production has been rather optimistically projected as high as 12 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020, significant obstacles to the development of the oil and gas industry remain.
The Status of Forces Agreement and Investing in Iraq: Risky Business?
In spite of ongoing security and political instability, Iraq remains one of the most fertile yet volatile regions in the world for emerging business opportunities, specifically in the petroleum industry. Since the completion of the widely successful “surge” and implementation of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), Iraq has experienced slow but steady improvements in security and economic opportunities in the petroleum sector. As a result, there has been an influx of international companies eager to engage Iraq’s ministries for access to these lucrative markets.
The Middle East Institute is proud to host Sean Foley, author of The Arab States: Beyond Oil and Islam (Lynne Rienner, 2010), for a discussion about the politics of the Gulf states and their role in the global economy. In the book, Foley presents a fresh picture of these states as cosmopolitan and tolerant societies that face many of the same socio-economic problems that other states do – including those that lack oil.
Transnational Networks and Local Challenges: Iraqis in Cairo
Originally posted March 2010
It is estimated that over four million Iraqi refugees have fled to neighboring countries in the region since the 2003 war began. While migration continued after the war, the peak of this influx was witnessed particularly in and after 2006 due to the acceleration of violence in central and southern Iraq. More particularly, the majority of these refugees fled due to direct threats to their lives and their immediate families.
Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower, the world’s two tallest skyscrapers, differ in height by a stunning 1,076 feet, are separated by nearly 4,000 miles of ocean, and are situated in countries and regions which, linguistically and culturally, have little in common ― except business.
This Commentary first appeared as an op-ed in the The National, March 14, 2010.
Iraq’s parliamentary elections have just concluded, but the major political battles are about to begin. At stake is what kind of country Iraq will become. Will Iraq’s progress toward greater stability continue? Will it look east towards Tehran for support and encouragement, or to the United States and its fellow Arabs? The stakes are high, and no one can afford to remain uninterested while Iraq continues its dramatic political evolution.
Beyond Iraq’s National Elections: Planning a New Phase in American Policy
This Commentary is an adaptation of a longer piece published by the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations at the College of William and Mary on February 25, 2010.
Sri Lankan Migration to the Gulf: Female Breadwinners – Domestic Workers
Several waves of Sri Lankan migration have taken place since the country gained independence in 1948. Beginning in the mid-1950s, wealthy, educated, English-speaking elites have migrated to Commonwealth countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom. In addition, since the upsurge in ethnic hostilities in the early 1980s, Tamil-speaking Hindu migrants have left the country, with many settling in Canada. In contrast with these permanent migrants, since 1976 a growing number of Sri Lankans have become migrant workers.
Millions of people around the world have left their home countries in search of employment. In 2005, there were 191 million migrants, or about 3% of the world’s population, living in other countries.[1]Today, that number has grown to about 200 million. An estimated one person in 35 is an international migrant. Almost all countries are affected by international migration. The Gulf countries are no exception.
How many Indians work abroad? We have no answer to this question even today. However, available evidence indicates that the state of Kerala in India has the highest number of emigrants in the Gulf countries.1
A Lexicon of Migrants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
The millions of foreign nationals working in the Gulf are often lumped together as “migrant workers,” but this is misleading. The population of foreign workers in the UAE, for example, is complex and heterogeneous. One layer of that complexity is manifested by the lexicon used by migrants to identify other migrants.
Migrant Workers in Kuwait: The Role of State Institutions
The treatment of migrant domestic workers is one of the defining stories told about the Arab Gulf states. Every year hundreds of news media and human rights reports detailing migrant domestic workers’ experiences of exploitation and abuse circulate globally. The narratives of these accounts are remarkably consistent. They often begin with the story of an impoverished woman from the global South, who, in order to improve the situation of her family, migrates to the oil-rich Gulf states in search of work and a more prosperous future.
