Contributor(s): Dr Bassem Awadallah, Dr Adeel Malik | The speakers will argue that the struggle for a new Middle East will be won or lost in the private sector, and that dismantling regional barriers to trade constitute the most important collective action problem that the Middle East has faced since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Bassem Awadallah is the former Jordanian minister of finance. Adeel Malik is Islamic Centre lecturer in Development Economics and Globe Fellow in the Economies of Muslim Societies at Oxford University.