Research & Commentary Results

In the past few months, several articles have been written on the significant rise in the Saudi female labor force participation rate (LFPR) from 17.7% in Q2, 2016 to 33.2% in Q4, 2020. Interestingly, this increase in female LFPR was not coupled with a rise in unemployment, which often occurs when workforce participation rises for a particular group. In fact, the unemployment rate among female nationals declined to its lowest level in four years, at 24.4% in Q4, 2020. However, it still remains over twice as high as that for male nationals. Another positive labor market indicator, albeit one receiving little attention from analysts, is the significant change in the employment rate among Saudi women. In other words, Saudi women not only increased their share in the workforce, but were also able to gain jobs once they entered the labor force.

Oil and gas have long dominated trade and investment flows between Singapore and the Gulf. In the wake of two new projects — one in Singapore and the other in the United Arab Emirates — unveiled last month, this article considers whether Singapore and the Gulf are on the cusp of a new level and type of economic relations.

تخوض مصر وإثيوبيا والسودان في مأزق خطير بشأن نهر النيل، وعلى الرغم مما يعتقده المجتمع الدولي، فإن خطر المواجهة العسكرية بين الدول الثلاث ليس مستبعدًا على الإطلاق. إذ بدأت أديس أبابا في المرحلة الثانية لملء الخزان خلف سد النهضة الإثيوبي العملاق في أوائل مايو/أيار دون اتفاق مع الدول المشاطئة – مصر والسودان. غير أن الكثير قد تغير خلال العام الماضي والملء الثاني يتم في ظروف مختلفة نوعًا ما عن الملء الأول في يوليو/تموز الماضي. ففي الأشهر الماضية، عززت مصر من تواجدها الدبلوماسي وظهرت كلاعب مؤثر في حوض النيل والقرن الإفريقي وشرق ووسط إفريقيا.

Sunday was a festive day in Baghdad. The last time Iraqis had received an Egyptian president 30 years ago, the region was gearing up for war and uncertainty as the late President Hosni Mubarak shuttled between Baghdad and Gulf capitals prior to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The circumstances were quite different on June 27, when Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and King Abdullah II of Jordan were given the red-carpet treatment at a tripartite summit marking the fourth meeting between the leaders of the three countries aiming to form a new regional alliance.

Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan are caught in a dangerous deadlock over the Nile River and despite what the international community seems to think, the risk of military confrontation among the three nations is not at all far-fetched. Addis Ababa began the second phase of filling the reservoir behind its giant Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in early May without an agreement with the riparian nations — Egypt and Sudan. However, much has changed over the past year and the second filling has played out rather differently from the first last July. In the intervening months Egypt has ramped up its diplomatic outreach and emerged as an influential player in the Nile Basin, the Horn of Africa, and East and Central Africa. Cairo succeeded in forging strategic alignment with Khartoum to exert diplomatic pressure on Addis Ababa, forming webs of alliances with different regional powers across East and Central Africa and the Horn of Africa to project power and influence, and exerting geopolitical forward pressure on Ethiopia in parallel with the diplomatic track to solve the GERD dispute. 

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

The synergies between the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean theaters have grown substantially in recent years. Speaking at a meeting in Paphos, Cyprus in mid-April 2021 with his counterparts from Greece and Israel, as well as the former minister of state for foreign affairs of the UAE (now an advisor to the UAE president), the Cypriot foreign minister noted, “The evolving web of regional cooperation is creating a new narrative.” A week later, the UAE and Israeli fighter jets flew together publicly — for the first time — in an international aerial exercise hosted by Greece. How can we explain the signs of growing cooperation between these actors that seemingly operate in close but not completely overlapping arenas?

Due to its relatively stable political institutions, geographic proximity to Libya, and UNSC seat, regional powers in the Middle East are competing for influence in Niger. Egypt and the UAE are trying to counter Turkey’s growing economic and security cooperation with Niger, Saudi Arabia and Iran wish to leverage its UNSC voting power, and Israel is testing the waters for a potential normalization of diplomatic relations. These rivalries are poised to intensify, as the Sahel’s geostrategic significance continues to expand.

“مصر بحاجة إلى انهاء سريع للمذبحة في غزة عن طريق التفاوض، وذلك لأسباب دولية ودبلوماسية، ولكن تدخلها ضروري أيضًا لأغراض محلية”.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

On the margins of Vienna’s nuclear talks, Riyadh and Tehran have opened their own conversation in Baghdad. Despite predictions of a potential grand bargain, Saudi and Iranian identity security will confine the results to a mere cooling of relations, at best. 

The rapidly growing state-supported arts infrastructure in Saudi Arabia tends to overshadow the lesser-known history of independent artist-led initiatives. The pioneering modernist Mohammed Alsaleem, for example, is known for establishing Dar Al Funoon Al Sa’udiyyah (The Saudi Art House) in Riyadh in 1979, the first space where artists could gather, work, mentor each other, and stage exhibitions at a time when there were no art schools or galleries. The Kingdom has gone through various stages in its cultural development from the 1960’s oil boom, a time of artistic productivity and government scholarships to study art abroad, to the tumultuous late 1970s of Islamic militancy and religious conservatism until the 2000s. “The 1960s was a time when art flourished in the Kingdom. In Riyadh, exhibitions by modernist painters were held in football clubs in order to engage the public,” says Raneem Farsi, an expert in Saudi Arabian contemporary art, of a time that has influenced her curatorial narrative. Along with Susan Davidson, former senior curator at the Guggenheim Museum, she is co-curator of the exhibition Light Upon Light: Light Art since the 1960s, which runs until June 12.

“مصادر دبلوماسية مصرية قالت في تصريحات غير علنية إنها بحاجة لرؤية التزام قوي من تركيا من أجل إجراء أي مصالحة حقيقية”.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.

اقرأ تقرير MEI الأسبوعي الذي يتضمن تحليلات الخبراء للتطورات الإقليمية الرئيسية للأسبوع المقبل.