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All Publications
All Publications
14 Aug 2017
Jordan’s Recent Economic Performance: Implications for Future Growth, Investment, Refugee Policy and Refugees
The past six years have been transformative for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. As a result of the civil war in Syria, the country has absorbed more than 660,000 Syrian refugees according to the United Nations Refugee Agency; while the official census, which was conducted in December 2015, estimate...
Author : Shaddin Alhajahmad, Dorsey Lockhart
14 Aug 2017
Syrian Refugee Labour Integration Policy in Jordan
Jordan's policy to provide limited worker rights to Syrian refugees went into effect in April 2016. A wide range of stakeholders have supported the effort to formalise Syrian labour. Official data suggests that the Syrian refugee crisis has had little impact on leading macroeconomic indicators. Yet...
Author : Shaddin Alhajahmad, Dorsey Lockhart
02 Aug 2017
Condensed Report: Decoupling National Water Needs for National Water Supplies: Insights and Potential for Countries in the Jordan Basin
Jordan and Palestine face extreme water scarcity and potential food insecurity. These conditions threaten human security and the natural environment. This report compares the water allocation and management experience of Jordan, Palestine and Israel using the lens of economic and resource decoupling...
05 Jul 2017
Decoupling National Water Needs for National Water Supplies: Insights and Potential for Countries in the Jordan Basin
Jordan and Palestine face extreme water scarcity and potential food insecurity. These conditions threaten human security and the natural environment. This report compares the water allocation and management experience of Jordan, Palestine and Israel using the lens of economic and resource decoupling...
02 May 2017
Examining Psychological Drivers of Radicalisation in Jordan
Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, it is estimated that over 35,000 foreign fighters have joined Sunni militant groups, such as Daesh and al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. The threat posed by such groups — both inside conflict zones and in countries of origin — has focused attention on the dr...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
18 Apr 2017
From Politics to Policy: Building Regional Resilience in West Asia and North Africa
From Politics to Policy: Building Resilience in West Asia and North Africa is an anthology of research conducted by the WANA Institute between 2015 and 2016 in the areas of human security, social justice, and sustainability. The chapters point to increased inter-sectorial collaboration being the key...
Author : WANA Institute
18 Apr 2017
From Politics to Policy: Building Regional Resilience in West Asia and North Africa
From Politics to Policy: Building Resilience in West Asia and North Africa is an anthology of research conducted by the WANA Institute between 2015 and 2016 in the areas of human security, social justice, and sustainability. The chapters point to increased inter-sectorial collaboration being the key...
Author : WANA Institute
18 Apr 2017
From Politics to Policy: Building Regional Resilience in West Asia and North Africa
From Politics to Policy: Building Resilience in West Asia and North Africa is an anthology of research conducted by the WANA Institute between 2015 and 2016 in the areas of human security, social justice, and sustainability. The chapters point to increased inter-sectorial collaboration being the key...
Author : WANA Institute
28 Mar 2017
Promoting Water Cooperation in the WANA Region: Widening the Base for Water Diplomacy
The arguments put forward in this paper suggest that the political importance of water determines the scope for diplomatic efforts. At the same time, there may be opportunities for different forms of water management that are not envisaged under traditional understandings of transboundary cooperatio...
Author : WANA Institute
28 Mar 2017
Religious Leaders Promoting Environmental Good Governance
This discussion paper gives with an overview of global environmental good governance concepts, highlighting the Islamic perspective in relation to the protection of environmental resources. It goes on to discuss ways in which religious and community leaders can promote environmental good governance,...
Author : Lara Nassar
28 Mar 2017
The Arab Environmental Governance Charter
The aim of this charter is to offer a set of pragmatic reform guidelines which can be used to respond to the new environmental challenges facing us today. It is hoped that an opportunity can be created to overcome deep-seated divisions between nations which will create a ripple effect for better act...
Author : Lara Nassar
16 Mar 2017
Traditional Knowledge: Valuable Wisdom in the WANA Region
In this booklet, members of the Arab Network for Pastoral Societies testify about the value of traditional pastoralist knowledge for the WANA region. Their primary goal is to revive, document and develop this knowledge in order to support the development of Bedouin pastoral groups in the Arab region...
Author : Kamal Kakish
28 Feb 2017
Facilitating a Hima Resurgence: Understanding the Links between Land Governance and Tenure Security
Today, traditional land management systems are increasingly at risk. This has consequences, not only for land sustainability but also for the livelihoods and welfare of those depending on such lands. In some areas, increased land scarcity and commoditisation has precipitated a breakdown of the custo...
Author : Kamal Kakish
21 Feb 2017
Trapped Between Destructive Choices: Radicalisation Drivers Affecting Youth In Jordan
Research on radicalisation drivers points to complex dynamics that include economic, social, psychological, and ideological push and pull factors. This report analyses radicalisation drivers that affect Jordanian and Syrian refugee youth in four radicalisation hotbeds: Ma’an, Salt, Irbid, and Rusayf...
Author : Dr Neven Bondokji, Kim Wilkinson, Leen Aghabi
16 Feb 2017
Climate Change Adaptation in Jordanian Communities: Limitations, Opportunities and Incentivisation
Jordan’s climate is changing. Average temperatures are increasing, while rainfall is declining. These trends are projected to worsen, and will not be limited to progressive changes such as heat and drought. Destabilisation of climate systems is expected to make sudden and extreme weather events more...
Author : Lara Nassar
01 Jan 2017
Refugee Labour Inclusion: Turkey and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
The following report is an assessment of the viability and the modalities of including Syrian refugees in the labour markets of the following host states: the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Turkey. Due to a lack of data available on refugee skillsets, the ability to quantify absorption capacity by se...
Author : Shaddin Alhajahmad, Dr Erica Harper
28 Nov 2016
Building Resilience and Sustaining Peace in the West Asia – North Africa Region: Reflections
To inform policy discussions taking place at the UN and in other international fora on the outcomes of the recent UN reviews on peace and security with experiences and perspectives of the regional and country level, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (the Foundation), in collaboration with the West Asi...
Author : WANA Institute
31 Oct 2016
Women and the Law in Jordan: Islam as a Path to Reform
This paper provides an analysis and critique of the legal provisions concerning violence against women, child custody, paternity, early marriage and inheritance in Jordan. It focuses on these specific areas because they were deemed both areas of challenge for women, and ones with wide potential for ...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
06 Oct 2016
Contingency Planning for Post-Conflict Syria
War is unilaterally destructive. Victories come at heavy costs and agreements force painful compromise. Moreover, for many civil conflicts, the end is inconclusive. Some two-thirds of countries devolve back into warfare within a decade. The civil conflict in Syria – sectarian, ideological, and inter...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi, Emily Hawley
20 Sep 2016
The Correlates of Civil Conflict and Instability in the West Asia-North Africa Region - Conflict Resilience Model Background Paper
One of the principal findings of this research is that against clear global trends, conflict in the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region is intensifying. There are four reasons to be concerned about this situation beyond the death and suffering that conflicts ...
Author : Kim Wilkinson, Mays Abdel Aziz, Emily Hawley
08 Sep 2016
Understanding Radicalisation: A Literature Review of Models and Drivers
Interest in the drivers of, and models to explain, the processes of radicalisation has increased exponentially since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Attention has focused on the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) region due to the expansion and reach of armed ra...
Author : Dr Neven Bondokji, Leen Aghabi, Kim Wilkinson
21 Jan 2016
Forging New Strategies in Protracted Refugee Crises: Regional Study
The Syrian refugee crisis is exposing the inadequacy of international refugee policy for responding to complex, protracted crises in the contemporary era. As the fighting in Syria drags on indefinitely, host states in Syria’s neighbourhood are facing new challenges and increasingly struggling to pro...
31 Dec 2015
The Case for Establishing an International Labour Compensatory Facility
Moderate migration is nominally positive for both hosts and migrants and creates mixed outcomes for countries of origin depending on their size and wealth. In small and less wealthy countries, migration can often breach a tipping point, after which benefits associated with remittances no longer outw...
Author : Dr Erica Harper, Adel Elsayed Sparr, Mays Abdel Aziz
10 Dec 2015
The Case for a WANA Regional Development Bank
New and better solutions are needed to respond to the economic challenges that are affecting the West Asia- North Africa (WANA) region and potentially maintaining it in a conflict trap. These solutions must evolve from the region itself, both for sustainability and to galvanise the political will ne...
Author : Mays Abdel Aziz
19 Oct 2015
Charting a New Course in Environmental Good Governance: Natural Resource Management, Al Hima & Islam
The modern capitalist development model has resulted in an unsustainable exploitation of the world’s finite natural resources, particularly water. Today, nearly 80 percent of the global population is water insecure; in developing countries 1.1 billion people lack access to a formal water supply and ...
Author : Dr. Odeh Al-Jayyousi
18 Oct 2015
The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda: Why goal 16 on justice is critical for the WANA region
On 27 September 2015, a high-level plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — the culmination of a 3-year process aimed at synthesising the environmental, social and economic dimensions of development.1 Goal 16 contains a strong emphasis ...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
18 Oct 2015
Bridging the Gap: A New Islamic Sustainable Development Model
This paper critiques the sustainable development concept and tries to tackle its limitations by defining a new model specific to the challenges and norms of the WANA region. It is argued that the forces likely to mobilise the citizens of the region and leverage the required political commitment migh...
Author : Laylla Rkiouak
18 Oct 2015
Food-Water-Displacement in the WANA Region
The WANA region not only shares bodies of water, it shares a regional food system, and it shares populations - particularly through refugee movement. Both food and water insecurity have been advanced as potential contributing drivers of migration and of conflict, and both are exacerbated by the disp...
Author : Heather Elaydi
01 Oct 2015
Forging New Strategies in Protracted Refugee Crises: Syrian Refugees and the Host State Economy: Jordan Case Study
The Syrian refugee crisis is exposing the inadequacy of international refugee policy for responding to complex, protracted crises in the contemporary era. As the fighting in Syria drags on indefinitely, host states in Syria’s neighbourhood are facing new challenges and increasingly struggling to pro...
Author : Sean D. Thomas, Mays Abdel Aziz, Dr Erica Harper
22 Jun 2015
Tribal Dispute Resolution and Women’s Access to Justice in Jordan
Understanding justice systems that developed over millennia before the advent of the state and still operate today is critical to strengthening women’s access to justice. Recognition of the important role of such ‘non-state justice systems’ and their complex linkages with other justice systems has g...
Author : Naomi Johnstone
22 Jan 2015
The Status of Legal Empowerment in Jordan: Evidence to Support the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Legal empowerment in Jordan is complicated by a set of overarching operational constraints. These include a legal framework that lacks internal coherency and protection for the poor; the absence of a sound governing framework; and a weak rule of law culture. This report examines the complexity of an...
Author : WANA Institute
26 Nov 2014
WANA Institute Operational Strategy 2015 - 2020
The WANA Forum was established in 2009 as a thematic dialogue platform, designed to strengthen regional dialogue and development cooperation. In 2014, the initiative was re-launched by His Royal Highness, Prince El Hassan bin Talal, as the WANA Institute ̶ a not-for-profit policy think tank based in...
Author : WANA Institute
01 Sep 2014
Legal Empowerment - Islamic Perspective
The successful application of legal empowerment principles in any region requires an acknowledgement of prevailing cultural and religious worldviews in a particular community. In the West Asia-North Africa region, this means an understanding of how legal empowerment relates to the Islamic legal trad...
Author : Maria Benjamin
01 May 2011
WANA Social Charter
The West Asia-North Africa Social Charter is a declaration of intent to hold the region’s assests in trust for its beneficiaries. The creation of the social charter was an important step for the WANA Forum members in setting up an effective commons trust to protect the region’s common resources and ...
Author : WANA Institute
02 Feb 2011
Regional Solutions for Water Scarcity in West Asia & North Africa
Water scarcity, energy, climate change, and drought, are the most pressing environmental challenges that face the West Asia North Africa region. Water management policies and institutions both at national and regional levels remain underdeveloped, and fundamental relevant policy questions remain una...
Author : WANA Institute
08 Nov 2009
Greening WANA Consultation Report
Facing up to threats to long-term economic and environmental sustainability means responding comprehensively to these challenges. With that aim, a group of WANA Forum leading experts met to discuss and debate the challenges and opportunities for Greening WANA, particularly in the areas of environmen...
Author : WANA Institute
25 Oct 2009
WANA-led Reconstruction and Recovery Expert Consultation Report
Reconstruction is a process of fundamental importance for the long-term peace, stability and development of all countries affected by conflict and war. The WANA region has experienced some of the most devastating wars of recent years and reconstruction and recovery have a particularly important role...
Author : WANA Institute
24 Oct 2009
Social Cohesion Consultation Report
Social cohesion goes beyond a safety net that protects and assists society’s most vulnerable. Rather, it is an integral part of socio-economic development that empowers everyone. It is about promoting a social cohesion mechanism in day-to-day life while also being reactive and strong enough to limit...
Author : WANA Institute