… Heading into the unknown Despite the current positive reaction of the Jordanian people and their compliance with the restrictions aimed at saving lives, this momentary amity between the state and the people is unlikely to endure after the virus is contained. In the long run, the emerging economic challenges will likely result in further social unrest and greater popular…
Women in the Middle East North African region pushing back against patriarchy
The world celebrated International Women’s Day on Sunday March 8. But such symbolic days seem to have little effect on the actual status of women in the world, as a recent United Nations report notes. Despite strides towards greater gender equality, the world body notes there is not a single country that has achieved gender equality. Moreover, 90% of men…
Why do Arabs dream of leaving their homelands?
High unemployment rates, oppressive regimes and a desire for better education are some of the reasons cited by Arabs who express a desire to leave their countries. The Arab world has seen a lot of its youth move in search of better opportunities for employment, freedom of expression, in addition to escaping from social and cultural norms they find oppressive….
Celebrating Arab women’s rights
Women’s yearning for fairness and equality has the support of overwhelming majorities in the Arab world. This year, as it is the case every year, the world marks International Women’s Day on March 8. The commemoration is usually an occasion for celebration of the milestones achieved. In the Arab world, there have been quite a few such recent milestones that…
Women approve of FGM more than men in Egypt, survey reveals
Even though the country first outlawed FGM in 2008 and further deemed it a felony in 2016, 51 percent of Egyptian women still approve of the procedure. Female genital mutilation (FGM), which is defined as a “partial or total removal of external genitalia, or any other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons” by the World Health Organization…
Munich Security Conference 2020 Arab Disillusionment
After the Arab spring back in 2011, the political Islam was one of the loudest voices – today, more young people turn away from religion They came late, but finally benefited from the change: While mass demonstrations faded away one authoritarian regime after the other back in 2011, the preachers were missing on the streets, who wanted to sort the…
How Sudan is ingratiating itself with Trump through Israel
…These developments have begun to alter the calculus for leaders of countries who are dependent on US and Gulf aid. But the concerns of country leaders are not necessarily shared among the population, according to a recent wave of nationally representative Arab Barometer surveys, which measured people’s perceptions of the threat to country stability posed by Iran, Israel, and the Trump…
What it is like to live in the Arab world today?
Join CEPS next Tuesday, January 28,2020, to discuss our latest wave of survey findings with Michael Robbins, Director of the Arab Barometer, MEP Isabel Santos, Chair of the Delegation for Relations with the Mashreq Countries and Rosamaria Gili, Head of Division Maghreb, EEAS.
Managing Migration Pressure through improved Youth Employability
Promoting productive employment opportunities dominates policy agendas around the world, particularly in the YEM Partner Countries. This is not surprising considering the demographic trends in these countries where a big – and expanding – share of the national populations is under the age of 25. As a substantial majority of the population approaches working age, there is a critical need…