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1. Ensuring Water Security in the Middle East: Policy Implications

Author:
Liel Maghen and Shira Kronich
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
Over the last decades, the Middle East, and more specifically the Eastern Mediterranean region, has experienced a rapid process of desertification. In water-scarce areas, access to water is thus of key importance for economic prosperity, political stability and the vitality of the civilian population. As a result, in those Eastern Mediterranean countries facing severe water scarcity water has been framed as an existential threat, leading governments to use and justify emergency measures highly concentrated at the governmental and military level. The overall analysis of this Joint Policy Study asserts that though water management is highly securitised in the Middle East, and access to the resource is considered a national security issue, water security and multilateral cooperation is not ensured but jeopardised by ongoing securitising trends. Securitisation promotes a national and centralised approach towards water management at the expense of the participation of civil society, neutral monitoring and data collection, and the creation of secure, sustainable and transparent access to water for local communities.
Topic:
Security, Water, Food Security, and Political stability
Political Geography:
Middle East and Mediterranean

2. Climate Security in the Sahel and the Mediterranean: Local and Regional Responses

Author:
A. Bassou, A. Chielewska, and X. Ruiz-Campillo
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
The Mediterranean connects Europe to Africa. The Mediterranean basin is thus an area of ​​interaction between the two continents. However, there is a perception that limits the Mediterranean basin to its strictest geographical sense, that is to say the countries of southern Europe and those of North Africa, which border the Mediterranean. This traditional conception ignores the geopolitical context, which broadens the vision of the Mediterranean basin by including all the spaces that impact it. Some human phenomena, such as migration, show that Mediterranean relations do not only concern the states bordering this sea, but a much larger area including the whole European Union, on the one hand, and North African, Sahelian and Sub-Saharan countries, on the other hand. The present study takes into account the broader conception of the Mediterranean. In this sense, it not only deals with the effects of climate change on the countries bordering the Mediterranean, but extends its analysis to the whole European Union (EU), to the Maghreb and especially to the Sahel. Due to its geography, climate, demography, proliferation of conflicts or its precarious level of industrialization, the Sahel region is the most threatened in the world by climate change. Any deterioration of the situation in the Sahel countries undoubtedly has repercussions on Europe and its relations with Africa. The four authors of the study examine the impact of climate change on the stability of the Sahel and the effects that the instability of this region could have on the Mediterranean space. The authors question the potential links between climate change and security. They outline the positions and frameworks of European actions as well as the different initiatives taken by EU institutions. Finally, they put forward some recommendations on how to effectively address this phenomenon.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Political stability, and Industrialization
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Sahel, and Mediterranean

3. Financial Development and Economic Growth in the Mediterranean Associated Countries

Author:
Adolfo Barajas and Seyed Reza Yousefi
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
Slow growth in the Mediterranean Associated Countries (MEDA) over the past three decades can be partly traced to underperformance by the financial sector. Several countries in the region lack financial depth, and the region as a whole has not fully benefited from the level of banking intermediation on offer, signaling a “quality gap.” Policy should therefore aim to enhance banking competition by removing entry barriers and improving credit information, reduce the role of state banks, further the process of financial reform, and provide a financial infrastructure conducive to bank and financial market development. Moreover, quality of intermediation appears to be related to access, and MEDA countries have also underachieved in terms of providing access to financial services to large segments of the population, in particular, to small and medium-sized enterprises. Efforts to widen access should also lead to improvements in quality and, ultimately, higher longrun growth.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Mediterranean

4. Euro-Mediterranean Higher Education Area: Enhancing Quality, Promoting Mobility and Employability

Author:
Nick Harris and Javier Albarracín
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
This paper results from a European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed)/National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain (ANECA) Conference held in Barcelona 23rd May 2011 on enhancing quality, promoting mobility and employability across the Euro-Mediterranean Higher Education Area. At a time when there is considerable change and uncertainty in almost all parts of the Euro-Med region, the conference discussions ranged across the nature and purposes of higher education, particularly in relation to employability and employment, and the benefits of and barriers to mobility for both students and academic staff. It also sought to identify the most effective ways in which the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) could contribute to further developments in higher education, bearing in mind the diversities and uncertainties that currently exist at social, political, and economic levels as well as in educations terms
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Mediterranean