Over the past decade, North Africa has made halting steps and achieved varying levels of progress toward developing its renewable energy capabilities. Wind and solar power, amongst other sustainable resources, offer promising opportunities for the region’s countries to contribute to the global energy transition while bolstering their economies and improving energy security on both sides of the Mediterranean. But issues of financing, governance, mismatched priorities, and fears of neo-colonial exploitation have, time and again, prevented the region from reaching its potential in this regard. To discuss the current state of renewable energy initiatives across North Africa, the Middle East Institute will be hosting an expert panel.
The discussion will seek to answer the following questions and more: What obstacles do North African countries face in their path to a renewable energy transition? What practical policies could help mitigate these challenges and accelerate renewable energy adoption? How would increasing North African renewable energy exports reshape wider regional and global geopolitical dynamics? This event is part of a research project supported by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS).
Speakers
Veronika Ertl
Head of the Regional Program on Energy Security and Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung
Andrew Farrand
Director for Middle East & North Africa, Horizon Engage
Mirette F. Mabrouk
Senior Fellow, Founding Director, Egypt & Horn of Africa Program, Middle East Institute
Mohammed Mahmoud
Independent Water Resources Management and Climate Adaptation Policy Expert
Fadil Aliriza
Non-Resident Scholar, Middle East Institute
Intissar Fakir (Moderator)
Senior Fellow, Director of Program on North Africa and Sahel, Middle East Institute
Extended Speaker Biographies
Veronika Ertl has been heading the regional program Energy Security and Climate Change for the Middle East and North Africa based in Morocco since October 1, 2022. She previously worked as a development policy officer in the Analysis and Consulting Department since December 2018. Ms. Ertl joined the foundation in 2016 as a research assistant in the regional program Political Dialogue in the Southern Mediterranean based in Tunis. Previous positions include her work in the GIZ “Cooperation with Arab Donors” program in Amman and in the Near and Middle East Association / German Orient Institute. She studied political science and international public management at the Free University of Berlin, University of California Los Angeles and Sciences Po Paris.
Andrew G. Farrand is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He is also Director for Middle East & North Africa at political risk consultancy Horizon Engage. His research focuses on foreign policy, politics, economics, and energy in North Africa, with a particular concentration on Algeria, where he lived from 2013 to 2020. He is author of The Algerian Dream (2021), a first-person analysis of the origins of Algeria’s 2019 Hirak revolution, and translator of Inside the Battle of Algiers (2017) by Algerian independence heroine Zohra Drif. He holds a Bachelor’s from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a Masters from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne’s School of Management.
Mirette F. Mabrouk is an MEI senior fellow and founding director of the Institute's Egypt Studies program. She was previously deputy director and director for research and programs at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council. Formerly a fellow at the Project for U.S. Relations with the Middle East at the Brookings Institution, Mabrouk moved to D.C. from Cairo, where she was director of communications for the Economic Research Forum (ERF). Before being appointed associate director for publishing operations at The American University in Cairo Press, Ms. Mabrouk had over 20 years of experience in both print and television journalism. She is the founding publisher of The Daily Star Egypt, (now The Daily New Egypt), at the time, the country’s only independent English-language daily newspaper, and the former publishing director for IBA Media, which produces the region’s top English-language magazines. Her writing has appeared in publications like Foreign Policy, The Hill and HuffPost and she has been quoted and appeared on the BBC, VOA, Sky News, The Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. She recently authored "And Now for Something Completely Different: Arab Media’s Own Little Revolution," a chapter in a book on the Arab transitions; Reconstructing the Middle East and is the editor of a multi author report, Rethinking Egypt’s Economy.
Mohammed Mahmoud is the former founding director of the Climate and Water Program at the Middle East Institute. His areas of expertise include climate change adaptation, water policy analysis, and scenario planning. Mohammed has held leadership positions in several organizations. Most recently as Chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance; a coalition of 12 of the nation’s largest water utilities that collectively provide water to over 50 million people in the United States, with the purpose of providing leadership and collaboration on climate change issues that affect water agencies. Mohammed’s professional accomplishments include negotiating and formalizing a 10-year multi-state cloud seeding funding agreement between seven Colorado River Basin states, developing and implementing the first ever climate adaptation plan for a multi-county water district in Arizona, and helping secure a 1.1 million dollar grant from NASA for Arizona State University to study the impacts of climate change on the hydrology of the Western United States. Furthermore, he has provided numerous subject matter interviews in press, radio, and video media on climate-associated topics such as regional climate change impacts, water resources management, extreme heat, droughts, and the food-water-energy nexus.
Fadil Aliriza is the founder and editor-in-chief of Meshkal.org, an independent news website in English and Arabic covering Tunisia. As a journalist and researcher, Aliriza has focused mainly on Tunisia from 2011 to the present. He also reported from Libya in 2013 and 2014. His reporting and analysis has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, and Foreign Policy. Most of Aliriza's recent research has focused on political economy, resulting in the publication of book chapters, articles, and monographs published by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Journal of North African Studies, among others.
Intissar Fakir is senior fellow and the founding director of the North Africa and Sahel Program at the Middle East Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Her work focuses on the geopolitics of North Africa and the Sahel. She has tackled issues at the intersection of political, social, and economic trends on the national and regional levels. Her writing and analysis spans policy audiences, media, and academia. She has also advised several governments, policy makers, and business leaders in North Africa, the EU, and US on issues from domestic politics, economic and social policies, energy, regional stability, and a range of other issues that affect state-citizens relations. She is a member of various advisory groups and is currently serving as a member of the supervisory board of the Council for Mediterranean diplomacy (Diplomeds.) She is a member of the board of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (IG-TOC) and a member of the scientific council of the El Cano Royal Institute.
(Photo by Hans-Jürgen Staudt/picture alliance via Getty Images)