International Relations

Excerpt from an October 16 installment of the “Inside the Middle East" Q&A Series, with Minister Hedi Larbi, Former Minister of Economic Infrastructure and Sustainable Development and Middle East Initiative Fall 2015 Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar, on the role of International Monetary Institutions such as the World Bank and IMF in encouraging and implementing economic reforms during the political transition in Tunisia.

The Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is now accepting applications for the Middle East Research Fellowship Program for the academic year 2014-2015.

The Harvard Kennedy School is pleased to announce the Fall 2013 funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund.

"While short-term pain is not unusual following the end of despotic regimes, long and protracted transitions can be terribly costly, requiring decades for societies to recover. Political impasse is not only depressing economies by discouraging trade and investment; it is also preventing the formation of governments that could implement much-needed economic and institutional reforms – and thus threatening to take these countries into a long downward spiral."

A policy brief by MEI Research Fellow Jamal Haidar and MEI Visiting Scholar Hedi Larbi on the reforms needed in the Arab world to contribute to improve the business environment and create productive jobs.