Research & Commentary Results

The Gulf Arab states, while major oil and gas producers, can play a significant role in supporting global efforts to achieve net-zero goals. They are not only endowed with great potential for renewable energy resources as well as some of the world’s lowest carbon content fuels, but also with, to varying extents, sizable financial resources. Yet, to unlock such huge potential, the Gulf Arab states will need to systematically identify and address the various challenges in their path to net zero.

For more than a decade, policymakers in developing countries in MENA have been confronted with high inequality, low growth, rising poverty, and high youth and female unemployment. They now face new challenges as well. This note briefly identifies some of the most important issues affecting the region, relates them to the results of a recent survey of 12 Arab countries carried out by Arab Barometer, and suggests some pathways out of the current quagmire.

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Amid international efforts to resurrect the fragile peace in Yemen, the Iran-backed Houthi militia is imposing stringent conditions for their return to the negotiating table, demanding that state payments of civil servant salaries also go to their militia members and loyalists through direct deposits, which would bolster both their forces and their transnational allies. While the need to compensate Yemeni civil servants is undeniable, the Houthis’ self-serving demands threaten to undermine any progress toward a lasting peace.

Despite massive hydrocarbon reserves, Iraq struggles with chronic electricity shortages. There is a clear need to explore cleaner alternatives, such as renewable energy systems, yet the deployment and integration of these systems would be hindered by the same structural woes that have crippled the electricity sector, and which go far beyond generation issues.

Energy remains at the heart of the geopolitical chessboard. Despite recent advances in the development of renewable energy sources, their share in the energy mix remains limited as oil still meets most of the transportation sector’s needs. The development of renewable energies is not yet able to drastically change this reality.

After a difficult year, things finally seemed to be looking up for Turkey’s beleaguered economy in early 2023. But then on Feb. 6 the worst happened: Turkey and Syria were hit by a pair of massive earthquakes, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and untold damage. How did Turkey’s economy stabilize in second-half 2022, what do we know about the economic impact of the earthquakes, and where might things be headed going forward?

As a condition of its $3 billion loan from the IMF, the Egyptian Central Bank confirmed its pledge to maintain a durably flexible exchange rate. The Egyptian pound quickly and sharply dropped, but economists are cautiously optimistic that Egypt can sustain the current crisis and repay its debts. The government is walking a tight rope, attempting to raise revenues and attract investments without exacerbating the tough living conditions at home.

Key findings from the latest Arab Barometer survey, its seventh wave, reveal that, despite some political gains in several Arab states, clear majorities in the 12 countries in which the survey was conducted still hold traditional views on gender norms.

The issue of diversification is difficult but urgent, given increasingly tight global climate policies, the advances of non-fossil technologies, and the limited lifespan of the KRI’s oil resources. Harnessing the region’s natural gas productively is the first step to a cleaner and more diversified economy.

Facing the profound challenge of trying to diversify its energy supply while a destabilizing war rages on in Ukraine, Germany has looked to several Gulf monarchies to forge new energy partnerships. Notwithstanding heated domestic debates over controversial topics such as their human rights record, Berlin should consider a more comprehensive strategic approach toward the Gulf monarchies that encompasses issues beyond energy supply, such as joint efforts in regional integration and development.

Gulf states are collectively investing billions of dollars in developing renewable energy. Yet climate change patterns in neighboring regions, combined with rising average temperatures, could eventually trigger more serious climate migration problems for the Gulf countries themselves.

The Gulf states are often overlooked as indirect beneficiaries of the Russia-Europe energy war. In what ways and to what extent have they leveraged it? Are these benefits sustainable?

The challenge of developing export strategies for the offshore natural gas resources concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean predates the Russo-Ukrainian war. Yet over the course of 2022, Europe’s intensifying energy crisis created a new and more immediate incentive to solve those export challenges, despite a great deal of work still to be done.

For the past ten years, Italy and Morocco have been two of the most economically dynamic countries in the Mediterranean basin. Morocco’s rise as a manufacturing and distribution hub for companies seeking to nearshore operations close to mature European end-markets, as well as emerging African end-markets, has created new potential synergies for a deeper Italy-Morocco commercial partnership.