The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Egypt from 6 to 18 November 2022. The location in Egypt, part of a wider Middle East region vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, offers a better opportunity to reflect regional concerns, challenges, and diverse national circumstances. This public discussion aims to examine the current state of climate action and implementation gaps in the Middle East.

• What are the key climate change challenges facing the Middle East countries?

The Middle East Institute, in collaboration with the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics and Political Science, will host two panels to tackle these and other questions.

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

In the past, media and think-tanks have published numerous reports and papers on the social transformations happening in the Arabian Peninsula, and, more specifically, inside Saudi Arabia. However, this analysis too often focused on the changes brought about from the top, via government initiatives like the emblematic Saudi Vision 2030. The newly-published book, Charity in Saudi Arabia, takes the opposite tack. In this innovative study of everyday charity practices in Jeddah, author Nora Derbal employs a “bottom-up” approach to challenge dominant narratives about state-society relations in Saudi Arabia. Exploring charity organisations in Jeddah, the book offers a rich ethnography of associational life. It counters Riyadh-centric studies which focus on oil, the royal family, and the religious establishment, while closely following those who work on the ground to provide charity to local poor and needy to document their achievements, struggles, and daily negotiations.

In this webinar, Dr. Derbal will explain why the lens of charity offers rare insights into the religiosity of ordinary Saudis, showing that Islam offers Saudi activists a language, a moral frame, and a worldly guide to confronting inequality. Charity in Saudi Arabia examines perspectives that are too often ignored or neglected, opening new debates about civil society and civic activism in the Gulf.

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.

Concerns about food global food supplies have been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, compelling states across the Middle East and North Africa to revisit their food security policies. The UAE, for one, announced its “National Food Strategy 2051” in 2018, and has since acquired substantial agricultural and food production assets from Latin America to South Asia. It also aims to become a major player in the production and distribution of fertiliser, while combining this approach with sustainability policies (particularly renewable energy) and the acquisition of shares in global food commodity trading firms.

Considering that the UAE imports 80 to 90 per cent of its food, how does it address the perennial debate between imports and self-sufficiency? Is value chain management a more appropriate strategy than farmland investments? How does Abu Dhabi manage food accessibility for vulnerable groups such as migrant workers? More broadly, what is the future of global security as several crises loom?

On 30 August, The Middle East Institute hosted H.E. Dr. Abdulnasser Al Shaali, the UAE’s Assistant Minister for Economic and Trade Affairs, as he addressed these questions and more.

For more information about this event, click here: https://mei.nus.edu.sg/event/bridging-the-gulf/ 

Throughout history, the Middle East has been locked in engagements with the West through crusades, wars, colonialism and terrorism. However, beyond the clichés and convenient facades lie many lesser known facets from economic transformation to climate change. This lecture series will give you a comprehensive overview of the region and its impacts on Singapore and the world.