Jackline Wahba, Professor of Economics at the University of Southampton looks at the civil unrest in Syria direct implications on the country’s populations movements on one of the neighbouring countries, i.e. Jordan. Why Syrian refugees have no negative effects on Jordan’s labour market is a question in everybody’s mind since the start of the ensuing multilateral conflicts.
MikeDotta / Shutterstock.com
Forced displacement is a global challenge. The number of displaced people rose from 43m to 69m between 2007 and 2017, with the highest growth primarily due to the Syrian conflict, which started in 2011. Since then, more than 6.3m Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries and beyond. This humanitarian crisis has generated public sympathy as well as concern about the implications of such a massive flow of people.
Jordan, which shares a border with Syria, has experienced a substantial influx of refugees. Around 1.3m Syrians live in Jordan, which has a total population of just 6.6m. The impact of so many people on members of the host community is a subject of great importance and debate.
One area of particular concern tends to be the job market. Jordan gives a unique insight into this as it signed an agreement with the EU in 2016, agreeing to allow Syrian refugees to enter legal employment in return for humanitarian aid, financial assistance and trade concessions from the EU. Known as the Jordan Compact, I studied its effect on the Jordanian labour market with colleagues Belal Fallah and Caroline Krafft. We found that the compact did not have a negative effect on Jordanian jobs or wages.
Using data that represented the whole country, combined with information on where most refugees live (which is fairly concentrated in certain areas of the country), we were able to identify the effects that Syrians had on Jordanians’ job prospects by comparing Jordanians’ labour market outcomes before and after the Syrian influx.
We found that Jordanians living in areas with high concentrations of refugees had no worse labour market outcomes than Jordanians with less exposure to the refugee influx. This result held across all labour market outcomes, including unemployment levels, hours, wages and characteristics of employment (such as sector, occupation and whether the work was formal or informal).
Our findings contrast with most of the very recent literature on the impact of the Syrian refugee influx, which to date had been limited to evidence from Turkey. Here, research found that natives who were employed informally were affected by Syrian refugees. But the global literature generallyfinds a similar mix to our findings of refugees having no or small specific negative effects on native job markets. This could be due to the demographics of refugees in Turkey and the fact that refugees aren’t legally allowed to work there, among other reasons.
Little competition
There are several reasons why the massive influx of Syrian refugees has had a minimal impact on the job situation in Jordan. The demographics of the Syrians in Jordan may have played an important role. Almost half are under the age of 15 and only 23% of Syrian refugees in Jordan are in the labour force (45% of men and 4% of women).
The aim of the Jordan Compact was to provide 200,000 Syrian refugees access to work permits and formal work. But the take up of work permits by Syrians has been very low. According to Jordan’s Ministry of Labour, by the end of 2017 only 87,141 work permits to Syrians were issued. This means there are few Syrians competing in Jordan’s (formal) labour market, making their effect on the labour supply relatively small.
Despite the massive inflow of Syrian refugees, the number of non-Syrian immigrants has not decreased in Jordan over the same period of time. According to Jordan’s 2015 population census, Jordan hosted an additional 1.6m non-Syrian foreigners. Other research has shown that Syrians mainly compete with economic immigrants in the informal sector where they don’t get given contracts, such as construction and some sales jobs. Here there is limited competition between refugees and Jordanians.
Demand and supply
The inflow of foreign aid has also been a potential mechanism for creating jobs for Jordanians. To help address the needs of the Syrian refugees, Jordan has received foreign aid from multiple sources. This aid has been channelled to help offset the budget deficit, finance public projects and support public services such as schools, hospitals and transport nationwide. Both direct assistance to refugees and aid to the government can create jobs, the latter disproportionately in the government and public sectors.
Finally, the increase in demand for public services by refugees, in particular education and health, has resulted in the Jordanian government increasing the provision of those services, which in turn increased the demand for workers (almost exclusively Jordanians) in these sectors.
Overall our results suggest that providing legal work opportunities to refugees is not detrimental to the native job market. The inflow of foreign aid to Jordan to assist with some of the needs of refugees, as well as the conditions of the Jordan Compact, which included aid and trade concessions and employment support for Jordanians, may have played an important role in creating labour demand for Jordanians. So it is vital to ensure sufficient resources and public services are in place to support refugees and the host economy.
Nearly 1.5m students around the world walked out of school on March 15 2019 to protest about the failure of the world’s governments to tackle climate change. The young climate strikers are forcing climate change onto the news agenda but researchers have warned that without a way to mobilise their passion in the long-term, the momentum they’ve generated for climate action could be lost.
In this first issue of Imagine, we asked academics how the strikes can translate into long-term impact. One researcher proposes directly channelling the energy of young people into climate action with a national service for the environment. Others tell us how youth enthusiasm can play an integral part in changing climate policy around the world – and what it all means for tackling this huge issue.
What is Imagine?
Imagine is a newsletter from The Conversation that presents a vision of a world acting on climate change. Drawing on the collective wisdom of academics in fields from anthropology and zoology to technology and psychology, it investigates the many ways life on Earth could be made fairer and more fulfilling by taking radical action on climate change.
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Climate change and the state of the planet in three graphs
Michelle Bloor, Principal Lecturer and Environmental Programme Manager at University of Portsmouth, argues that a volunteer force of conservationists could offer experience and training to young people and ensure there are eager applicants for the vital work of helping the world’s species and habitats most threatened by climate change.
Bloor groups the work a national service for the environment could cover into four categories:
Data collection – by surveying wildlife abundance or measuring water quality in lakes and rivers, volunteers could help scientists understand how ecosystems are changing.
Green construction – restoring wooded habitat could absorb carbon and create corridors which connect pockets of wildlife in fragmented habitats. Large-scale construction projects could involve volunteers working on habitat highways – green corridors which help wildlife cross road networks.
Species reintroduction – helping ecosystem engineers, such as beavers, return could help the process of expanding natural habitats. These animal recruits could create new dams and lakes, which provide new opportunities for more species to thrive.
Reforestation – humans have cut down three trillion trees since the dawn of agriculture – around half the trees on Earth. A mass reforestation effort would need plenty of volunteers worldwide, something a youth volunteer force could supply. In the UK, increasing total forest cover to 18% could soak up one third of the required carbon emission cuts needed by 2050, according to the 2008 Climate Change Act.
Change in the forest and woodland cover of England over the last 1,000 years. DEFRA, Author provided
A conservation army of millions was active in 1930s America
The idea of enlisting millions of young people in conservation work is not new. It has origins in a public work relief programme from the 1930s. During the depths of the Great Depression and while the Dust Bowl ravaged rural America, US president Franklin Roosevelt implemented a series of reforms as part of the New Deal to implement a more sustainable land policy and revive economic growth. One of those reforms was the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It enlisted 3m young men who planted over two billion trees on more than 40m acres of land between 1933 and 1942. Their aim was to repair ecosystems throughout the US with hundreds of projects in forestry and conservation.
A national service for the environment would see individuals taking a direct role in mitigating climate change, but there is also an emerging political project aiming to capitalise on public support for action.
Radical climate action is now a feature of mainstream politics
The Green New Deal is a proposed series of reforms with three broad aims:
To eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from energy, transport, manufacturing and other sectors of the economy within ten years.
To create full employment in the manufacture of clean energy infrastructure and other essential work.
To redistribute wealth and tackle social and economic inequality.
Rebecca Willis, Researcher in Environmental Policy and Politics at Lancaster University says:
Alongside an aim for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and 100% renewable energy, the Green New Deal demands job creation in manufacturing, economic justice for the poor and minorities, and even universal healthcare through a ten-year “national mobilisation”, which echoes president Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.
What would decarbonisation involve? The Green New Deal entails shifting electricity generation from coal and natural gas to wind, solar, hydroelectric and other zero-carbon technologies.
Cars and trucks running on petrol and diesel would likely need replacing with mass public transport options powered by green energy.
Private vehicles would need to use batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.
Air travel would also need to use electricity for short flights and advanced zero-carbon fuels for longer journeys.
Electric heating in our homes, schools and places of work.
The carbon price has to be incredibly high and cover a broad swathe of the economy to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Governments haven’t shown a willingness to do this and recent research suggests that even steep prices will not produce the deep emissions reductions required to limit global warming to under 2°C.
Will people lose jobs because of the Green New Deal?
The Green New Deal resolution guarantees full employment, but Fabian Schuppert, Lecturer in International Political Theory and Philosophy at Queens University Belfast, believes its promised changes to the economy would have immediate consequences for workers in many industries which rely on fossil fuels.
Job losses in sectors such as coal mining and manufacturing could erode popular support for a Green New Deal and harm the plan’s commitment to a just transition, he argues. A just transition is a commitment to ensure the costs of a transition from fossil fuels – such as tax rises and redundancies – aren’t forced on working people.
A universal basic income might offer citizens time to engage in fulfilling community-based work that doesn’t generate profit but which has social value. Taking them out of their cars in long lines of commuter traffic and putting them in allotments growing food or in parks enjoying nature could help usher a whole new way of life.
A Green New Deal will aim to kickstart manufacturing – can it be done without supercharging carbon emissions? Think4photop/Shutterstock
This is arguably the question most often asked of the Green New Deal. Edward Barbier, Professor of Economics at Colorado State University, says it does and has some suggestions:
Pass a carbon tax which will help raise money to pay for a transition to a green economy and also help spur that very change.
Passing a carbon tax is one of the best ways to go. A US$20 tax per metric ton of carbon that climbs over time at a pace slightly higher than inflation would raise around US$96 billion in revenue each year – covering just under half the estimated cost. At the same time, it would reduce carbon emissions by 11.1 billion metric tons through 2030.
Redirect subsidies currently given to fossil fuel companies. Those subsidies are estimated to be around US$5 trillion a year globally, 6.5% of global GDP.
Raise taxes on the highest-earning Americans.
Imposing a 70% tax on earnings of US$10m or more would bring in an additional US$72 billion a year …
But climate justice is still a grey area with the Green New Deal
While one of the central aims of the Green New Deal is to redistribute wealth and tackle social and economic inequality in the US, its impact on poorer parts of the world has perhaps been less discussed.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, says that climate justice must not end at the borders of a country implementing a Green New Deal. Otherwise, he states, the Green New Deal may become “the next chapter in a long history of US industrial policies that have oppressed people”.
Táíwò believes there is a risk that a Green New Deal could spark a race for vast territory on which to build solar farms or grow biofuel crops. In the process, historic injustices could be perpetuated through “climate colonialism”. He says:
A research institute reported in 2014 that Norwegian companies’ quest to buy and conserve forest land in East Africa to use as carbon offsets came at the cost of forced evictions and food scarcity for thousands of Ugandans, Mozambicans and Tanzanians. The Green New Deal could encourage exactly this kind of political trade-off.
The UK, France and other European powers carved Africa up among themselves in the late 19th century. davidjl123 / Somebody500, CC BY-SA
The contradiction at the heart of the Green New Deal
Matthew Paterson, Professor of International Politics at Manchester University says that new infrastructure and redistribution proposed by the Green New Deal may boost carbon emissions:
Many of the measures proposed – such as investing in infrastructure and spreading wealth more evenly – will intrinsically work in tension with efforts to decarbonise the economy. They create dynamics that increase energy use at the same time as other parts of the Green New Deal are trying to reduce it. For example, building infrastructure such as new road networks will both create demand for carbon-intensive cement manufacture and opportunities for more people to travel by car.
Other academics like Joe Herbert, a researcher at Newcastle University, have argued that sustaining emission reductions in the long term can only be achieved by managed degrowth of the economy.
As the Green New Deal develops and its policy details are refined, its proponents may choose to adopt such novel ideas.
A national service for the environment in a Green New Deal
At such an early stage in the Green New Deal’s development as a political project, much of the discussion around it remains speculative. However, Rebecca Wills argues that it has already achieved something by reinvigorating the debate over climate action:
The Green New Deal is already succeeding in putting climate action where it belongs, as the defining political issue of our time. How strange that we have the current US political environment to thank for this huge step forward.
Michelle Bloor believes that including her vision of a national service for fighting climate change within the aims of a Green New Deal could help galvanise support for the latter, by providing an outlet for some of the enthusiasm of young people who have taken part in the climate strikes. Building a coalition for radical climate action under the Green New Deal is likely to lead the ongoing strategy of the project. Bloor believes that mobilising the growing youth movement is a good place to start.
Al Jazeera’s Middle East showcased this story in pictures of certain peoples of the Arabian peninsula. Amongst their present wide and diverse variety, the Flower Men of Saudi Arabia are exceptionally unique in their well held till today customs.
These are the Descendants
of the ancient Tihama and Asir, fierce warriors, reclusive tribesmen, and
lovers of floral headwear.
The most elegant wreaths are made with a type of white jasmine that is so fragile it has to be kept in iceboxes by the sellers. A wreath like this can be worn for two days. Eric Lafforgue/Al Jazeera
Saudi Arabia – In Jizan and Asir, Saudi Arabia’s southern
provinces, live the reclusive Flower Men.
For centuries, these descendants of the ancient
Tihama and Asir tribes have been known for wearing colourful flower garlands on
their head.
They lived completely isolated until 20 years ago;
their villages had no electricity or paved roads and they lived according to
traditional tribal law.
Even today, the Flower Men were reluctant to have
their photos taken or even meet strangers.
They enjoy their peaceful way of life and the
margin of autonomy they are given.
They are the only tribes in Saudi Arabia who
are allowed to grow and consume khat, a stimulant drug. Possession of
drugs is punishable by the death penalty in the kingdom.
The Flower Men also hold strongly to their
tradition of floral decorations as a peaceful way of setting them apart.
The
community spreads across the border into Yemen, a country the Saudi-led
coalition is targeting in air raids.
The mountainous region has become popular and attracts many local tourists from the lowlands. The Flower Men grow coffee on the terraces, but also khat, a stimulant drug. This is an exception in a country where possession of drugs leads to the death penalty. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraFlower Men can also be found on the other side of the border: in Yemen. Because they feel a strong kinship with the people in Yemen, the war there makes people unhappy. The conflict also affects the local economy and brings many refugees into Saudi Arabia. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraFlower Men do not wear the traditional ghutra (headdress), instead adorning their heads with beautiful, scented wreaths of fresh flowers. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraSometimes the Flower Men will share images of their wreaths on social media platforms like Instagram. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraThe Flower Men go to the market early in the morning to buy ready-made wreaths. Some prefer to select their own herbs and flowers, preparing the garlands themselves, for a more unique look. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraHerbs such as wild basil, fenugreek and marigold flowers are most popular. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraIn the Mahalah Flower Men market, an old man wears traditional shoes made of palm leaves. Things started to change with the construction of a cable car track in the 1990s that allowed access to the remote villages of the Flower Men. But traditions remain strong with the elders. Eric Lafforgue/Al JazeeraThis is a village that was inhabited by the Flower Men until the 1980s. Some of the structures are more than 200 years old. Eric Lafforgue/Al Jazeera
This article originally appeared on Fast Company, it was republished by the World Economic Forum on 8 March 2019. It is to be noted that in the eastern end of the MENA region, notably in the Gulf Cooperation Countries, Asian populations and investments happily cohabitate with the respective native minorities.
The centre of the world. Image: REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
By Parag Khanna, Senior Research Fellow, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
This excerpt is from Parag Khanna’s book “The
future is Asian”. The book was chosen as February’s book for the World
Economic Forum Book Club. Each month, a new book will be selected and discussed
in the group. The author will then join in on the last day of the month to
reply to some questions from our audience.
When we look back from 2100 at the
date on which the cornerstone of an Asian-led world order began, it will be
2017. In May of that year, sixty-eight countries representing two-thirds of the
world’s population and half its GDP gathered in Beijing for the first Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI) summit. This gathering of Asian, European, and African
leaders symbolized the launch of the largest coordinated infrastructure
investment plan in human history. Collectively, the assembled governments
pledged to spend trillions of dollars in the coming decade to connect the
world’s largest population centers in a constellation of commerce and cultural
exchange—a new Silk Road era.
The Belt and Road Initiative is the
most significant diplomatic project of the twenty-first century, the equivalent
of the mid-twentieth-century founding of the United Nations and World Bank plus
the Marshall Plan all rolled into one. The crucial difference: BRI was
conceived in Asia and launched in Asia and will be led by Asians. This is the
story of one entire side of the planet—the Asian side—and its impact on the
twenty-first-century world.
The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, And Culture In The 21st Century Image: Simon & Schuster / Hachette, February 2019
Asians once again see themselves as
the center of the world—and its future. The Asian economic zone—from the
Arabian Peninsula and Turkey in the west to Japan and New Zealand in the east,
and from Russia in the north to Australia in the south—now represents 50
percent of global GDP and two-thirds of global economic growth. Of the
estimated $30 trillion in middle-class consumption growth estimated between
2015 and 2030, only $1 trillion is expected to come from today’s Western
economies. Most of the rest will come from Asia.
The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, And Culture In The 21st Century Image: Simon & Schuster / Hachette, February 2019
Asia produces and exports, as well as
imports and consumes, more goods than any other region, and Asians trade and
invest more with one another than they do with Europe or North America. Asia
has several of the world’s largest economies, most of the world’s foreign
exchange reserves, many of the largest banks and industrial and technology
companies, and most of the world’s biggest armies. Asia also accounts for 60
percent of the world’s population. It has ten times as many people as Europe
and twelve times as many people as North America. As the world population
climbs toward a plateau of around 10 billion people, Asia will forever be home
to more people than the rest of the world combined. They are now speaking.
Prepare to see the world from the Asian point of view.
To see the world from the Asian point
of view requires overcoming decades of accumulated—and willfully
cultivated—ignorance about Asia. To this day, Asian perspectives are often
inflected through Western prisms; they can only color to an unshakable
conventional Western narrative, but nothing more. Yet the presumption that
today’s Western trends are global quickly falls on its face. The “global
financial crisis” was not global: Asian growth rates continued to surge, and
almost all the world’s fastest-growing economies are in Asia. In 2018, the
world’s highest growth rates were reported in India, China, Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Uzbekistan. Though economic stimulus arrangements and ultralow
interest rates have been discontinued in the United States and Europe, they
continue in Asia. Similarly, Western populist politics from Brexit to Trump
haven’t infected Asia, where pragmatic governments are focused on inclusive
growth and social cohesion. Americans and Europeans see walls going up, but
across Asia they are coming down.
Rather than being backward-looking,
navel-gazing, and pessimistic, billions of Asians are forward-looking,
outward-oriented, and optimistic.
These blind spots are a symptom of a
related oversight often found in foreign analyses of Asia, namely that they are
actually about the United States. There is a presumption that Asia (and frankly
every other region as well) is strategically inert and incapable of making
decisions or itself; all it is waiting for is the US leadership to tell them
what to do. But from the Asian view, the past two decades have been
characterized by President George W. Bush’s incompetence, President Barack
Obama’s half-heartedness, and President Donald Trump’s unpredictability.
The United States’ laundry list of perceived
threats—from ISIS and Iran to North Korea and China—have their locus in Asia,
but the United States has developed no comprehensive strategy for addressing
them. In Washington it is fashionable to promote an “Indo-Pacific” maritime
strategy as an antidote to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, failing to see how
in reality Asia’s terrestrial and maritime zones cannot be so neatly separated
from each other. For all their differences, Asians have realized that their
shared geography is a far more permanent reality than the United States’
unreliable promises. The lesson: the United States is a Pacific power with a
potent presence in maritime Asia, but it is not an Asian power.
The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, And Culture In The 21st Century Image: Simon & Schuster / Hachette, February 2019
The most consequential misunderstanding
permeating Western thought about Asia is being overly China-centric. Much as
geopolitical forecasters have been looking for “number one,” many have fallen
into the trap of positing a simplistic “G2” of the United States and China
competing to lead the world. But neither the world as a whole nor Asia as a
region is headed toward a Chinesetianxia, or harmonious global system guided by
Chinese Confucian principles. Though China presently wields more power than its
neighbors, its population is plateauing and is expected to peak by 2030. Of
Asia’s nearly 5 billion people, 3.5 billion are not Chinese.
Asia’s future is thus much more than
whatever China wants. China is historically not a colonial power. Unlike the
United States, it is deeply cautious about foreign entanglements. China wants
foreign resources and markets, not foreign colonies. Its military forays from
the South China Sea to Afghanistan to East Africa are premised on protecting
its sprawling global supply lines— but its grand strategy of building global
infrastructure is aimed at reducing its dependence on any one foreign supplier
(as are its robust alternative energy investments).
China’s launching the Belt and Road
Initiative doesn’t prove that it will rule Asia, but it does remind us that
China’s future, much like its past, is deeply embedded in Asia. BRI is widely
portrayed in the West as a Chinese hegemonic design, but its paradox is that it
is accelerating the modernization and growth of countries much as the United
States did with its European and Asian partners during the Cold War. BRI will
be instructive in showing everyone, including China, just how quickly colonial
logic has expired. By joining BRI, other Asian countries have tacitly
recognized China as a global power—but the bar for hegemony is very high. As
with US interventions, we should not be too quick to assume that China’s
ambitions will succeed unimpeded and that other powers won’t prove sufficiently
bold in asserting themselves as well. Nuclear powers India and Russia are on
high alert over any Chinese trespassing on their sovereignty and interests, as
are regional powers Japan and Australia. Despite spending $50 billion between
2000 and 2016 on infrastructure and humanitarian projects across the region,
China has purchased almost no meaningful loyalty. The phrase “China-led Asia”
is thus no more acceptable to most Asians than the notion of a “US-led West” is
to Europeans.
China has a first-mover advantage in
such places where other Asian and Western investors have hesitated to go. But
one by one, many countries are pushing back and renegotiating Chinese projects
and debts. Here, then, is a more likely scenario: China’s forays actually
modernize and elevate these countries, helping them gain the confidence to
resist future encroachment. Furthermore, China’s moves have inspired an
infrastructural “arms race,” with India, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and others
also making major investments that will enable weaker Asian nations to better
connect to one another and counter Chinese maneuvers. Ultimately, China’s
position will be not of an Asian or global hegemon but rather of the eastern
anchor of the Asian—and Eurasian—megasystem.
The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, And Culture In The 21st Century Image: Simon & Schuster / Hachette, February 2019
The farther one looks into the
future, therefore, the more clearly Asia appears to be—as has been the norm for
most of its history—a multipolar region with numerous confident civilizations
evolving largely independent of Western policies but constructively coexisting
with one another. A reawakening of Western confidence and vitality would be
very welcome, but it would not blunt Asia’s resurrection. Asia’s rise is
structural, not cyclical. There remain pockets of haughty ignorance centered
around London and Washington that persist in the belief that Asia will come
undone as China’s economy slows or will implode under the strain of nationalist
rivalries. These opinions about Asia are irrelevant and inaccurate in equal
measure. As Asian countries emulate one another’s successes, they leverage
their growing wealth and confidence to extend their influence to all corners of
the planet. The Asianization of Asia is just the first step in the Asianization
of the world.
Stability at the regional level and intensification of
all partnership, for a lake of peace and shared prosperity.
After the mixed impacts of the Barcelona
Agreement and the Union for the
Mediterranean (UfM) activities, a summit of the western Mediterranean
countries as a significant meeting will be held on 24 June 2019 in France to
boost cooperation between countries of the two shores of the western
Mediterranean. The refocusing on the
western Mediterranean is accompanied by the realization that the residents of
this basin share not only primary common interests, particularly in the
economic field but also security in order to establish a “strengthened
association”. The objective being “resolutely political” to
avoid a north-south fracture that could carry all the drifts and extremities,
that can lead to major imbalances. For example, for this meeting, the migratory
flux depends largely on the under-development of the disadvantaged regions of
the southern shore of the Mediterranean and instead of feeding the misunderstanding
about the idea of a “union” of the two shores. Would it make more sense to conclude a pact
of cooperation and solidarity limited to the States on both sides of the
Western Mediterranean, a pact based on shared values and principles; a pact motivated
by an objective of solidarity and development, in the framework of a win-win
partnership?
Civil society, a significant
player
We must be aware that all new international relations are no longer based mainly on personalized relations between heads of state but between decentralized networks and organizations through the involvement of the civil society which can promote cooperation, a dialogue of cultures, tolerance and symbiosis of the contributions of the east and the west. It is dangerous to be locked up in a ghetto that would inevitably endanger life through violence. The latest events should make us think even better by avoiding this confrontation of religions because so much Islam, Christianity or Judaism have contributed actively to the flourishing of civilizations, to this tolerance by condemning any form of extremism. Future relationships between the two shores of the western Mediterranean composed of 5 + 5 countries can be enabling vectors. For, overall, southern Europe and the Maghreb cannot escape this adaptation to global mutations (the current crisis leading to profound upheavals in both geostrategic and socio-economic areas) and more globally in the whole of the Mediterranean region. For there is a need to overcome narrow chauvinistic nationalisms insofar as true nationalism in the future will be defined as the capacity to increase together with the standard of living of all populations by our contribution to global added value. The world is currently characterized by interdependence between countries. This does not mean the end of the role of the state but a separation of politics and economics which cannot be subjected to the vagaries of the economic situation, the State dedicating itself to its fundamental mission of macroeconomic regulator and macrosocial. We firmly believe and after analysis that the intensification of cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean and more specifically between Europe and the Maghreb ought to be based on true co-development, with the possibility to disrupt bureaucratic behaviours of all conservative rentier annuitants and register them in a dynamic perspective profitable to the populations of the region. It is that the Mediterranean area can be a place of creation of logical networks allowing to communicate with distant cultures by promoting the symbiosis of the contributions of the east and the west. This network must promote communication links; freedom insofar as the excesses of corporate voluntarism inhibit any spirit of creativity.
It is that the Maghreb and Europe are two geographical regions presenting a millennial experience of openness on Latinity and the Arab worlds with natural links and in its whole door of culture and influences Anglo-Saxon. It is essential for Europe to develop all the actions that can be implemented to achieve desirable balances within this set. The creation of weak regional economic spaces is a stage of structural adjustment within the globalized economy with the objective of promoting political democracy, a humanized competitive market economy, debates different ideas through social and cultural actions to combat extremism and racism the implementation of ordinary affairs. Thus, it is necessary to pay attention to the educational action because the thinking man and creator must be in future the beneficiary and the leading actor of the development process. That is why we are advocating the creation of a Euro-Maghreb university as well as a cultural center of the Mediterranean youth as a means of reciprocal fertilization of cultures for the realization of the sustained dialogue in order to avoid prejudices and conflicts sources of unnecessary tensions as well as a central Euro bank to promote trade. Algeria and France can promote the creation of these empowering structures.
Cooperation between the Maghreb and European 5 + 5 countries
It is in this context that must be apprehended a realistic approach to co-partnership between the two shores of the western Mediterranean where civil society will play a significant role, considering the fast approaching Fourth World Revolution in the geostrategic, economic, social and cultural fields. At the global level, we are witnessing the evolution of a past accumulation based on a purely material vision, characterized by rigid hierarchical organizations, a new method of accumulation based on knowledge control — technological news and networked organizations, with segmented global chains of production where investment, in comparative advantages, being realized within sub-segments of these channels. As Jean-Louis Guigou, president of the IPEMED (Institute of Economic Foresight of the Mediterranean world, in Paris), it must be made clear that, in the interest of both the French and the Algerians, and more generally the Maghreb and Europeans as well as all the south Mediterranean populations. More precisely, economically the win-win partnership at the country level two shores of the Mediterranean, presents strengths and potential for the promotion of diverse activities and this experience can be an example of this global partnership becoming the privileged axis of rebalancing of southern Europe through the amplification and tightening of links and exchanges in different forms. Exchanges can be intensified in all fields: agriculture, industry, services, tourism, education without forgetting cooperation in the military field, where Algeria can be an active actor, as shown by its efforts towards the stabilization of the region. Moreover, let us not forget the number of residents of Maghreb origins, and whatever the number, the diaspora is an essential part of the rapprochement between our peoples because it contains essential intellectual, economic and Financial. Also, must mobilize at various stages of intervention the initiative of all the parties concerned, namely Governments, diplomatic missions, universities, entrepreneurs and civil society.
The intensification of
cooperation between the two shores of the western Mediterranean will only be
possible if the involved countries have a realistic approach to co-development
far from the mercantile vision and the spirit of domination, having a shared
vision of their becoming. The symbiosis
of the contributions of the East and the West, the dialogue of cultures and
tolerance are sources of mutual enrichment. The latest events should even
better make us think, avoiding this confrontation of religions because both
Islam, Christianity and Judaism have contributed actively to the flourishing of
civilisations, to this tolerance by condemning any form of extremism.
Globalization is a blessing for humanity if we integrate social relations and
not confine it solely to merchant relations by synchronizing the real sphere
and the commercial sphere, economic dynamics and social dynamics. At the time
of the geostrategic tensions at the level of the region, the consolidation of
large ensembles, the challenges of globalization, the rapprochement between the
two shores is necessary for an intensification of cooperation, to measure the
weight of the history that binds us. However, let us be realistic for in
practice, the implementation of sound business, like the image of a country, no
longer rests as in the past on personalized relations between heads of States
or ministers but instead must be the result of decentralized networks,
favouring the involvement of innovative, dynamic individual and companies.
Tactics must be integrated within the strategic function/objective of
maximizing the social well-being of the entire Mediterranean region.
Concerning the summit of the western Mediterranean civil societies on June 24, 2019 in France, this important international meeting will bring together, the heads of States and Governments, the President of the World Bank, the presidents of the EIB, the EBRD, the Director-General of the OECD and non-State actors of civil society in all their economic, social and cultural diversity. Its political launch will have on the 15th meeting of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 5 + 5 dialogue on 18 January 2019 in Valletta. Five groups have been set up: Morocco will lead the economy, and innovation component, Portugal, culture, Italy, sustainable development, Malta youth and mobility, and Algeria has had the most critical component, having been made responsible for the Energy Transition. This could mean regional cooperation projects, conventional energies, non-conventional energies, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and in general proposing the new energy consumption model 2020/2030. His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Algeria, appointed professor Abderrahmane Mebtoul, expert International, to lead the Algerian delegation, at the International Meeting on June 24, 2019, in France.
Originally posted on Good Food on Bad Plates: We don’t typically make a lot of stews because Toddler Mash doesn’t typically eat them. A couple of weekends ago, though,we ended up making a lamb cobbler on the Saturday and kusksu (Libyan couscous with spicy beef and vegetables) on the Sunday. He surprised us on the…
Originally posted on Imen Bliwa Blog: Abib, Sierra Leone’s immigrant helping a friend’s child while camping in front of UN building in Tunisia Along with many of his friends and neighbors, Abib had to spend days and nights in front of the UN building (IOM). A calm fancy neighborhood next to Tunis Lake turns into…
Originally posted on Mackneen, The Algerian Goldfinch: It’s Spring, like the season then, twelve years ago. Time flies, like a bird. On this day, twelve years ago, I created this blog and I gave it a name: Mackneen,The Algerian Goldfinch. On that day I went to Algiers for a visit to my mother, and to my…
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