Across public sectors in the Arab world, international consultancy firms already play a pivotal role and are further expanding their operations. Among other projects, con­sultancies have (co-)designed such high-profile strategies as Saudi Arabia's "Vision 2030" and Morocco's "Green Agenda"....

In the space of just nine months, Tunisia's President Kais Saied has centralised power and dismantled the institutions established by the young democracy since the revolution of 2011. His new constitution establishing a "New Republic" will be put to a referendum on 25 July 2022. Saied's plans...

NATO's 2023 summit in Vilnius was dominated by Russia's war against Ukraine. The summit in Washington, D.C., in July 2024 will be influenced by an additional major conflict in NATO's neighbourhood: the war in Gaza and the related heightened tensions in the Middle East. These have also negatively...

The European Union has been negotiating a new free trade agreement (DCFTA) with Tunisia since 2016, seeking to expand mutual market access for all goods, and also services and investments. But great obstacles remain to be overcome. The EU hesitates to grant concessions on agriculture that would...

January 2019 marked the eighth anniversary of the end of the Ben Ali dictatorship - the celebrations however were marred by massive social protests. Opinions both in Tunisia and abroad differ about the state of Tunisia's political development as it gears up for its second parliamentary and...

Despite a hostile environment, Tunisia's democratisation process since 2011 has survived and progressed. Yet crucial structural reforms to ensure effective governance, economic growth and resilient democracy have yet to be implemented. Elec­tions in 2019 indicated a popular desire for a strong...

The Covid-19 pandemic has moved relations with Sub-Saharan Africa further up the Maghreb countries' agenda and consolidated existing trends. Morocco is the Maghreb state with the most sophisticated Sub-Sahara policy. Its motivations include attractive growth markets in Africa, frustration over...

The global pandemic crisis has highlighted the inherent weaknesses of governance in countries of the Maghreb. It has underscored Morocco's lagging human development and infrastructure amid growing authoritarianism. In Algeria, where the government is struggling with an ongoing legitimacy crisis,...

International rankings and indexes, such as the World Press Freedom Index pub­lished in mid-April 2021, are increasingly influential in the Maghreb. The region's governments promote improvements in their own performance, protest where they score poorly, and celebrate outranking their rivals....

The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are mapping out agendas to kickstart a hydrogen economy. Especially Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are pursuing ambitious plans to supply Europe and Asia-Pacific with the carbon-friendly fuel. Numerous declarations of...