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November 2, 2009
"Petraeus, not Westmoreland"
Op-Ed, On Leadership at washingtonpost.com
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"I think it is the grappling with important problems with greater-than-expected candor, genuine authenticity and extraordinary sacrifice that accounts for the military's high standing. The chosen military messengers often convey that. Can we say the same of other sectors of society: hard problems, candor, authenticity, sacrifice?"
AP Photo
November 1, 2009
"A Middle Way, Best Solution to Nuclear Crisis"
Op-Ed, Iran Review
By Kayhan Barzegar, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
"Although it is difficult under the current circumstances to predict Iran's response to the agreement, but all signs point to a middle way, which if chosen carefully, could be positive and in line with Iran's national interests. In fact, if Iran kept part of the enriched uranium in the country and sent the rest to another country, it would pave the way for the continuation of cooperation."
November, 2009
Health Financing and Health Outcomes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region
Working Paper
By Marwa Farag, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
This paper presents an overview of health spending and health outcomes in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region over the time period 1995-2006, using cross-country and over-time comparisons. Overall, the region experienced improvements in health outcomes measured in terms of reductions in infant, under-5 child mortality and maternal mortality. However, there are notable exceptions to this trend of declining mortality in countries such as Afghanistan. In addition to providing an overview of changes in health outcomes and health spending over the 12-year period, the paper examines the following two issues:
1) The responsiveness of health care spending to changes in a country's income, and
2) The impact of spending on health care services on health outcomes.
November, 2009
Health Financing and Health Outcomes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region
Policy Brief
By Marwa Farag, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
This policy brief is based on analysis conducted in the paper entitled "Health Financing and Health Outcomes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region". An overview of health financing and health outcomes in the region using crosscountry and over-time comparisons (1995-2006) shows that, as expected, there is great variation among countries in the region in terms of health spending, health inputs, and health outcomes, with one extreme being Afghanistan, which spent less than 50 constant international dollars on health per capita per year, and the other being Qatar with a per capita health spending exceeding 2,500 constant international dollars in the period 1995 to 2006. This variation in health spending is echoed in health outcomes with more than 250 under-5 deaths per 1000 live births in Afghanistan, while it is less than 10 per 1000 live births in the United Arab Emirates. This pattern of health spending and health outcomes clearly demonstrates the very different stages at which health care systems in the region operate, and hence the different nature of challenges and health issues facing these countries.
November, 2009
Strategies for Acquiring Foreign Nuclear Assistance in the Middle East: Lessons from the United Arab Emirates
Working Paper
By Bryan Early, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
The path to acquiring a peaceful civilian nuclear program is fraught with challenges for countries in the Middle East. Given Israel's proactive policies in preventing the proliferation of its neighbors and nuclear supplier states' consternation about the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region, Arab states face a number of unique obstacles in acquiring foreign nuclear assistance. Yet as the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) recent success in courting the assistance of a number of nuclear supplier states demonstrates, these obstacles are not insurmountable. This piece explores the UAE's strategies in obtaining foreign nuclear assistance to uncover the generalizable insights that may be of use to other Middle Eastern countries seeking to develop peaceful nuclear programs.
November, 2009
Export Control Development in the United Arab Emirates: From Commitments to Compliance
Policy Brief
By Bryan Early, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
The swiftness with which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched its civil nuclear program presents a number of challenges for policymakers in seeking to ensure the program's safety and security. At the onset of its efforts, the UAE government consulted with a set of the world's leading nuclear suppliers to develop a framework that would help its nuclear program conform to the highest standards in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation. The UAE drew on these consultations in making a sweeping set of international commitments in April 2008 to ensure that the sensitive nuclear materials and technologies it would acquire as part of its nuclear program would be securely controlled.1 While the UAE has been widely praised for the depth and breadth of the nonproliferation commitments it has made, it will be the UAE's efficacy at complying with them by which its success will be judged.
November, 2009
Securing the Peace: The Battle over Ethnicity and Energy in Modern Iraq
Working Paper
By Justin Dargin, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
This article examines the legal and political impediments to the Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG) exploration and production contracts, which the central government in Baghdad has refused to recognize. The newly established Iraqi national constitution significantly opened as many petroleum-control questions as it resolved. Negotiated in 2005, the constitution not only separated branches of government, but established Federalism as its lodestar. When faced with unresolved issues over regional and national control over petroleum resources, however, International Oil Companies (IOCs) function in an ambiguous legal environment that fails to clearly distinguish between federal and regional powers.
November, 2009
The Ties that Bind: the Dolphin Project and Intra-GCC Relations
Policy Brief
By Justin Dargin, Research Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Qatar was the force behind the creation of the Dolphin Project (Dolphin), a much reduced form of the pan-GCC pipeline, envisioned at the November 1989 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit meeting as the most ambitious domestic Middle Eastern gas project ever undertaken. As originally conceived, a transnational pipeline was to weld the national gas grids of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE into a single integrated bloc. Qatar's enormous North Field, the largest associated natural gas field in the world, became the centerpiece of this vision.
November, 2009
Private higher Education in the GCC: Best Practices in Governance, Quality Assurance and Funding, Executive Summary
Policy Brief
By Rasmus Bertelsen, Former Research Fellow, Dubai Initiative, 2008–2009; Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology, and Public Policy, 2006–2008.
The Gulf region has for the last 15 years seen a vast expansion of private higher education in an effort to increase higher education capacity beyond national systems, develop human resources, and diversify national economies away from oil and gas resources. The examples of classical American- and French-system private universities in Beirut and Cairo and their contribution to human and socioeconomic development are strong reasons for supporting private higher education. However, there are important shortcomings in the governance, quality assurance and funding of especially for-profit higher education, which must be overcome for this sector to positively contribute to development. This policy brief outlines the strengths and weaknesses of private higher education, best practices in governance, quality assurance and funding: non-profit, independence and commitment to academic excellence; the consequences of Western accreditation; and non-profit and endowment-based finance.
November, 2009
Applying For-Profit Principles in Water Management and Agricultural Policy in the Middle East and North Africa
Policy Brief
By Mohamad M. Al-Ississ, Former Research Fellow, 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.
