PUBLICATIONS
The Dubai Initiative publishes the works of its Senior Fellows, Research Fellows, Associates, and others affiliated with the organization. We also offer complimentary hard-copies of our Working Papers and Policy Briefs series. Please contact us at dubai_initiative@hks.harvard.edu for more information.
July 20, 2007
"My Uncle 'Keri' and the Immigration Debate"
Lowell Sun
By Gregory Aftandilian, Former Research Fellow, Dubai Initiative/International Security Program 2006-2007
Gregory Aftandilian reflects on his own family's history and the current debate on immigration.
January 15, 2007
"Numbers Game Inconsequential"
Orlando Sentinel
By Gregory Aftandilian, Former Research Fellow, Dubai Initiative/International Security Program 2006-2007
Inserting more U.S. troops into Iraq is unlikely to dampen the hatred against the U.S. occupation, and the more insurgents we kill, the more recruits the insurgents will gather from the dead insurgents' brothers, cousins and uncles. This cycle of violence will, in turn, lead to more U.S. casualties.
November, 2009
Applying For-Profit Principles in Water Management and Agricultural Policy in the Middle East and North Africa
By Mohamad M. Al-Ississ, Former Research Fellow 2008-2009, The Dubai Initiative
Through its partnerships with the government, the agricultural sector in the MENA has long engaged in dubious accounting practices to raise its reported profits through artificially suppressing its costs. This has led to the current unsustainable exploitation of the scarce water resources in the region.
November, 2009
The Cross-Border Financial Impact of Violence
By Mohamad M. Al-Ississ, Former Research Fellow 2008-2009, The Dubai Initiative
This paper argues that violent events have two economic effects: a direct loss from the destruction of physical and human capital, and a reallocation of financial and economic resources. It documents the positive cross-border impact that follows violent events as a result of this reallocation. Thus, it reconciles the two existing perspectives in the literature on whether violence has a small or large economic effect. Our results show that, in globally integrated markets, the substitution of financial and economic activities away from afflicted countries magnifies their losses. This study evaluates certain factors affecting the impact of violence in non-event countries. Geographic distance from the event country is not monotonic in its effect on the valuation of equities of other countries. Also, the safer a non-event country is perceived to be relative to the event country, the greater the positive impact on its financial market. Finally, event countries with deeper financial markets are less susceptible to capital reallocation following an event.
March 11, 2009
Listen to "The Cross-Border Impact of Violent Events" with DI Fellow, Mohamad Al-Ississ
By Mohamad M. Al-Ississ, Former Research Fellow 2008-2009, The Dubai Initiative
In a Dubai Initiative Brown Bag Seminar on February 18, 2009, DI Fellow Mohamad Al-Ississ discussed the cross-border impact of violent events.
July 7, 2008
"The Middle East has just a few years to reap this double dividend"
The National
Research from the Dubai School of Government and the Wolfensohn Centre for Development at the Brookings Institution shows that employment opportunities for Middle Eastern youth are staggering, if the educational insitutions and the workplace would increase cooperation.
Winter 2007/2008
Issues of War and Peace in the Middle East: A Few Remarks
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School, Tarik Yousef, Former Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative, Vali Nasr, Nabil Ali Alyousuf and Lakhdar Brahimi
"The Middle East: Between Progress and Conflict," an inaugural conference jointly hosted by The Dubai Initiative and the Dubai School of Government, was held on November 8, 2007 at the Kennedy School of Government.
The conference opened with remarks by Graham Allison, Nabil Ali Alyousuf, Tarik Yousef, and Vali Nasr. Lakhdar Brahimi, former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, opened the conference with his keynote speech, "Issues of War and Peace in the Middle East: A Few Remarks."
Winter 2007/2008
Issues of War and Peace in the Middle East: A Few Remarks
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School, Tarik Yousef, Former Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative, Vali Nasr, Nabil Ali Alyousuf and Lakhdar Brahimi
"The Middle East: Between Progress and Conflict," an inaugural conference jointly hosted by The Dubai Initiative and the Dubai School of Government, was held on November 8, 2007 at the Kennedy School of Government.
The conference opened with remarks by Graham Allison, Nabil Ali Alyousuf, Tarik Yousef, and Vali Nasr. Lakhdar Brahimi, former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, opened the conference with his keynote speech, "Issues of War and Peace in the Middle East: A Few Remarks."
June 2011
"A New Case for Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation"
By Arani Kajenthira, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
Industrial and urban water reuse should be considered along with desalination as options for water supply in Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudi Ministry for Water and Electricity (MoWE) has estimated that an investment of $53 billion will be required for water desalination projects over the next 15 years [1], the evolving necessity to conserve fossil resources and mitigate GHG emissions requires Saudi policy makers to weigh in much more heavily the energy and environmental costs of desalination. Increasing water tariffs for groundwater and desalinated water to more adequately represent the costs of water supply could encourage conservation, but also reuse, which may be more appropriate for many inland and high-altitude cities.
August 2011
"The Water–Energy Nexus in Middle East and North Africa"
Energy Policy, issue 6, volume 39
By Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Extracting, delivering, and disposing water requires energy, and similarly, many processes for extracting and refining various fuel sources and producing electricity use water. This so-called 'water–energy nexus', is important to understand due to increasing energy demands and decreasing freshwater supplies in many areas. This paper performs a country-level quantitative assessment of this nexus in the MENA region.
