The MENA region is experiencing a confluence of stressors, from ongoing instability to intensifying climate-related issues like water insecurity. At the recent Doha Forum, ECSP’s Lauren Risi sat down with Hassan Al-Mulla, CEO of Silatech, to discuss what his organization—as an international non-profit NGO focusing on youth economic empowerment—is doing to address some of these challenges.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created universal impacts on mental health.  Anxiety, depression, and other conditions have worsened as financial instability, isolation, gender-based violence, and other factors generated by this crisis have contributed to poor mental health – especially for youth, LGBTQ+ populations, and pregnant/postpartum women. Yet despite the global attention focused on mental health, overall conditions have only worsened in vulnerable communities.

The war in Ukraine is likely to have immediate effects on many countries in the MENA region. Ukraine is an important global producer of sunflower oil and grain, and alongside Russia, it provides a third of the world’s wheat and barley. Russia’s invasion also will severely disrupt food transport logistics within Ukraine and across its borders due to the suspension of shipping from Ukraine’s commercial ports.

When considering the potential effects of “backdraft” on climate change responses, the question of the world’s water future may be the most salient of all—especially as we examine water supplies and freshwater ecosystem health.

Water is one of the most critical factors for regional security and stability because it is multidimensional. It is an essential resource in ecosystem services & environmental security, yet its importance creates significant possibilities for insecurity—including corruption, environmental crimes, and other illegal activities.  

Collecting plastic fragments was a game he played while helping his parents farm when growing up in rural Shandong Province, says Dr. Zhao Kaiguang, who is now an associate professor of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University: “I wanted to collect the most, but did not realize the serious negative implications of leaving plastic in the soil.”

Care work makes all other work possible. It is also the fastest-growing sector of work in the world—projected to add 150 million jobs by 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the importance of care work. It has also exposed how women perform most caregiving work, which is unpaid, underpaid, and/or undervalued. Globally, women and girls contribute more than 70 percent of total global caregiving hours (paid and unpaid) and perform more than 75 percent of unpaid care work. The inordinate amount of unpaid care work women and girls perform prevents them from earning a paid income, which contributes to greater gender inequities worldwide.

“To attack the most vulnerable—babies, children, pregnant women, and those already suffering from illness and disease, and health workers risking their own lives to save lives—is an act of unconscionable cruelty,” says a Joint Statement from UNICEF, UNFPA, and WHO in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine. To monitor human rights abuses such as this and improve human rights conditions around the world, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly established the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2006. The UPR produces purposeful engagement by all 193 UN member states participating in the periodic reviews. Despite the UPR’s potential to advance human rights—and by extension improve human security—this novel human rights mechanism receives little attention among scholars and policymakers. This lack of interest in the UPR needs to change. More research could shed light on its role in improving human rights outcomes in conflict-free countries as well as in countries experiencing conflict like in Ukraine, Syria, and Ethiopia.