Resources Archive

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki recently convened a meeting of Arab leaders in Baghdad to discuss cooperation on water issues. In an email interview, Annika Kramer, a senior project manager at the German think tank Adelphi, discussed the state of cooperation on water in the Middle East. WPR: What is the current state of water management cooperation in the Middle East? Annika Kramer: Cooperation in water resources management only takes place to a very limited extent in the Middle East. None of the main transboundary river basins in the region — the Euphrates-Tigris, the Jordan and the Nile basin — […]

Robust economic growth proved to be elusive in the U.S. and Europe over the past decade, but that certainly was not the case across Asia, Africa and Latin America. From 2003 to 2007, developing countries averaged 7.2 percent in annual economic growth. Further indications that developing economies had effectively delinked from the West came in 2010, when dozens of developing countries recovered to near-record rates of growth while the United States and Europe remained hamstrung by financial and debt crises. China’s rapid industrialization triggered much of this expansion by driving up global commodity prices. In sourcing commodities from other developing […]

Egypt and Libya are working to establish a joint venture to allow fishing in Libyan waters following a bilateral meeting in Cairo last month. In an email interview, Izzat Feidi, a fisheries consultant, discussed regional cooperation on fishing issues in North Africa. WPR: How strong is intraregional cooperation within North Africa on fisheries issues, and what are the main points of conflict? Izzat Feidi: Before the Arab Spring, intraregional cooperation among the six countries of North Africa faced several political and economic problems, mostly on a bilateral basis. Fisheries did not comprise a major point of conflict, though, beyond mainly […]

In late-May, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan initialed a gas sale and purchase agreement (GSPA) for the long-envisioned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project. The step is being seen regionally as a marker of seriousness for a project that until a few years ago was categorized as a dark horse when compared to the much-touted Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, itself currently on hold due to both Iranian inertia as well as Washington’s firm opposition to the project. For the United States, forward movement on TAPI serves to further isolate Iran from regional integration efforts, while showcasing the potential of its New Silk Road […]