The need for access to and use of safe and clean energy resources is universal. But energy access and use are often constrained in challenging socioeconomic contexts and for disadvantaged communities. There is a real risk that vulnerable rural communities worldwide will continue to be left out of whatever energy development achievements are made in their respective regions or countries. This risk is elevated for rural communities in some agriculture-based Arab countries where poverty is widespread, and the scarcity of freshwater is high and rising due to population growth and the climate crisis. Improving energy security within these communities and reducing the risk that they w

Previous experiences of post-war reconstruction (PWR) inform us that it will always fall short of the expectations of donors and recipients alike. There is not one experience of such reconstruction where things went according to plan. Experts and writers have to go all the way back to post-WWII reconstruction in Europe and Japan to find successful examples, only to discover that their contexts were fundamentally different from any subsequent post-war scenarios. This report is available in Arabic only. Its English version has been published in “The Cairo Review of Global Affairs.&rd

This publication is available in Arabic only. 

The commentary investigates China’s position on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing that it is unlikely to extend substantive support to Russia over the short or medium terms. The commentary then highlights some of the lessons its stance might have for observers in the Gulf.

This publication is available in Arabic only. 

The situation in Yemen is arguably as confusing as ever, but what does seem clear is that the year has started with a series of conflagrations. Military escalation on the ground has seen the most significant and sudden battlefield shifts in quite some time. Simultaneously, cross-border attacks have seen the Houthi movement, or Ansar Allah—a predominately Zaidi Shia revivalist movement that has upset the region’s geopolitical balance— launch missile strikes that directly hit Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Characterizations of a frozen conflict have been turned on their head—all the while underlining the seemingly intractable nature of the con

This publication is available in Arabic only. 

This article begins by analyzing the factors contributing to the recent unrest in Kazakhstan and how Russian commentators have leveraged media debates to call for the deployment of peacekeeping troops to the Central Asian country. Next, it explores the possible motivations driving Kazakh and Russian leaders’ cooperation in the deployment, along with the longer-term implications for their two countries. Finally, the article discusses the lessons that can be drawn from the recent events in Kazakhstan and what they might mean for Central Asia writ large.

This publication is available in Arabic only. 

Rather than preventing conflict, internationally backed peace agreements in South Sudan, Sudan, and elsewhere have established a system of incentives that structure elite compacts in the capital that actually intensify the political economy of war. Such peace agreements rely on a normative vision of the state that is at odds with how states have actually come to function in many conflict zones in the world since the 1980s. This normative vision enables peace agreements to be easily instrumentalized by elites and is a major reason why such agreements fail to prevent conflict. Such failures are not contingent but are structural properties of peace agreements that at best aim for r