JORDAN / FRANCE. French energy company Voltalia signs an agreement to acquire a 70% majority stake in four solar power plants in Jordan.

MENA. The World Bank is alarmed about the economies of the Middle East and North Africa region being doubly hit by the coronavirus and falling oil prices. A report calls for a new framework for global trade integration in the region. version française

SYRIA / EU. In its latest report on the financial monitoring of grant and loan pledges to Syria, the European Commission indicates that as of 31 August 2020, international donors had disbursed $5 billion in grants to Syria and its region in 2020. version française

LEBANON / ISRAEL. The first talks in thirty years between Lebanon and Israel begin in the city of Naqoura, the headquarters of UNIFIL. They will focus on the maritime borders between the two states still officially at war.

JORDAN / EU. The European Investment Bank signs a technical assistance cooperation agreement with the Cities and Towns Development Bank (CVDB) in Jordan.

LIBYA / EU. The European Council imposes sanctions on three companies, including one Turkish and one Jordanian, involved in violations of the UN arms embargo on Libya.

Three policy papers published by the EMNES (Euro-Mediterranean Network for Economic Studies) examine the complex issue of legal immigration in the Mediterranean area and its paradoxical consequences. Encouraging it on one hand reduces illegal immigration, while on the other it leads to a brain drain from south to north. Version française

The Euro-Mediterranean Economists’ Association (EMEA) has been poring over reports of the Covid-19 spread in ten countries and analysing the political responses, with a view to limiting the pandemic’s economic impact. Version française

Jordan and Lebanon, two of the main host countries regarding the number of Syrian refugees, have seen an increase in vocations with social impact during the past two years. A different kind of entrepreneurs has continued to multiply, promoting mutual aid and solidarity rather than profit. A few months ago, Femise published a study on this phenomenon. An analysis which is more topical than ever with the Covid-19 pandemic which calls into question our current systems and sees the reinforcement of new behaviors focused on humanist values. Version française

As part of the Emerging Valley summit, Femise and Institut de la Méditerranée highlighted several initiatives to strengthen the place of women in the economies of the Mediterranean basin. Version française

Interview with meetMED project manager Matteo Barra. MeetMED is a two-year, European Union-financed project managed by the MEDENER, officially launched in May, 2018, at the Union for the Mediterranean’s headquarters in Barcelona. Version française

Publié en septembre 2019. Rédigé par Katarzyna Sidło, Mohammed Al-Jafari, Reema Al-Balous. Following the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, an estimated 1.5 million and 1.3 million Syrian refugees sought a safe haven in Lebanon and Jordan respectively (Reuters, 2017; Ghazal, 2017)....

Version française

Publié en septembre 2019. Rédigé par Simon Neaime, Thomas Lagoarde-Segot, Isabelle Gaysset Despite a significant growth in profitability and efficiency, the Middle East (MED) well developed banking system seems to be unable to reach vast segments of the population, especially the underprivileged...

Third Syria conference by European Union and United Nations is to address the most critical humanitarian and resilience issues in Syria and host countries. Reporter : Ziad Ghandourb Camera / Editeur : Anthony Headley / EU Pool / Ziad Ghandourb Source : OPEN Media Hub....

April 2019. Written by Serena Sandri, Nooh Ashyab, Elyas Azzioui This study builds on the result of in-depth interviews conducted over a sample of 72 innovative nascent and early stage entrepreneurs in Jordan and Morocco and, herewith, provides an overview of the main characteristics of innovative...

The question of the equality of men and women in the labor market is acute in North Africa and the Middle East, countries marked by the weight of culture and secular traditions. In a study just released by the Femise on the issue of discrimination at workplace and wage gaps, the economists examine the situation of women in Egypt and Jordan. Version française

Published in April 2019. Directed by Doaa M. Salman. The issue of gender equality in the labour market is an important one not only for the wider norm of fairness but also more specifically for economic development and the efficient utilization of (human) resources in the economy. For countries in...

Published in March 2019. Directed by Marco Zupi and Alberto Mazzali. Economic exclusion, as the lack of participation to the production and consumption processes as well as of income distribution processes, is a central component of multidimensional social exclusion, the complex combination of...