Middle East & North Africa

"The power shortage is a symptom of the inability or refusal of key actors to govern the territory."

This study offers insights on the existing state of, as well as future opportunities for, collaboration between private firms and universities in Kuwait and the UAE.

Several developing countries seek to build knowledge-based economies by attempting to expand scientific research capabilities. Characterizing the state and direction of progress in this arena is challenging but important. In this article, the authors employ three metrics: a classical metric of productivity (publications per person), an adapted metric which we denote as Revealed Scientific Advantage (developed from work used to compare publications in scientific fields among countries) to characterize disciplinary specialty, and a new metric, scientific indigeneity (defined as the ratio of publications with domestic corresponding authors) to characterize the locus of scientific activity that also serves as a partial proxy for local absorptive capacity.

An audio recording of a public talk by Victor J. Willi, Senior Researcher and former Associate Director and Global Leadership Fellow, World Economic Forum.

"Perhaps so much death and destruction take place around the Arab world, at the hands of Arabs, Israelis, Americans and others, because no serious process exists that holds individuals or governments accountable for the atrocities they commit. The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir for war crimes a few years ago has never been followed up by a serious effort to bring him to court for a fair trial..."

"On Tuesday morning after the historic agreement between Iran and world powers over Iran’s nuclear program, President Barack Obama and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif both mentioned a new factor at play for their two countries. Obama called for seizing the opportunity to move in a new direction, and Zarif spoke of a new chapter of hope. This is precisely what we can expect if the agreement slowly leads to normal political relations and even an entente between the U.S. and Iran."

In this installment of “Inside the Middle East: Q&A,” recorded on April 16, 2015, Nabil Fahmy, Former Foreign Minister of Egypt and Dean and Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP), American University Cairo, discusses Egypt’s transitional process, public policy challenges, and foreign policy, including relations with Iran and intervention in Yemen.

"The consummation of a full, multi-decade agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers, based on last week’s agreed parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program, is likely to have monumental consequences — mostly for the better — across the entire Middle East. I base this expectation on one important historical analogy, and on several possible — I believe, likely — developments related to domestic, Gulf-wide, Mideast regional and international dynamics."

"The agreed parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program that were reached Thursday between Iran and the P5+1 powers represent a monumental achievement that affirms the power of reason and diplomacy over the ravages of fear and warfare."