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Opinion
Opinion
06 Sep 2022
Elimination of environmentally induced handicaps allows people with disabilities to engage in daily life
An Accessible Environment… is one of my rights!
An accessible environment is one that is disability-friendly, in which barriers to accessing infrastructure, facilities, and transportation are removed and eliminated. The inaccessible environment is a major challenge that hinders people with disabilit...
Author : دعاء الخضير، عبد المجيد دحبور، فاروق المقابلة، هديل جلهم، لمى سمارة
18 Aug 2022
The hidden impact of cryptocurrencies on the environment
One might think that the next generation of technological advances, such as cryptocurrency and cloud computing, will bolster advanced solutions to address developmental challenges, yet, along with benefits these technologies have major drawbacks.
On the positive end, cryptocurrency can provide a dec...
Author : Reem Alhaddadin
21 Jul 2022
Agricultural Informality: The women working outside the safety net of social protection
‘We said to the boss: “She needs treatment.” He replied, “How am I supposed to get the car over here?” She didn’t get the treatment she needed, so she died.’ Stories, like these, form just one part of the harsh reality of living as a female agricultural worker in the district of Tabqat Fahel in Jord...
Author : Safaa Al Momani, Chiao-Chun Chuang, Shahed Al Ghzawi, Maymuna Delki Anwaar Al Nethami, Khetam Qawaqzeh
17 Jul 2022
How Women are Overburdened by Jordan’s Public Transit System
The issue of public transport poses a unique challenge to Jordanian women, whose day-to-day activities - and the means by which they get to them - are difficult to anticipate. While men are, in general, able to enjoy the stability of a predictable schedule, for women the issue becomes a little more ...
Author : Areej Halabeya, Farah Al Mor, Naseeba Abu Rabeeha, Bayan Al Smadi, Refat Al Freihat and Mohammed Abu Addas
19 Jan 2022
100 Years of Jordan, 100 Years of Hospitality
This essay was submitted by Riyam Nashwan and does not necessarily reflect the views of Konrad-Stiftung-Adenauer or the West Asia North Africa Institute.
“Today’s unprecedented global refugee crisis remains a humanitarian disaster and it is proving to be an increasing threat to global security, de...
Author : Riyam Nashwan
13 Jan 2022
Year 2030, minus the climate crisis
It is 2028 and the main media headline is “The battle against climate change is coming to its final act”. In 2030, experts announce that more than 85% of the current global energy is supplied by renewable and efficient clean resources, moreover, the global temperatures are within limits and countri...
Author : Samer Fakhoury
08 Mar 2021
COVID-19 and its Toll on Women in Jordan
COVID-19 was an unprecedented crisis that emerged in unexpected circumstances. This pandemic necessitated a change in priorities worldwide, with people compelled to come together in solidarity and unite all their efforts to support the health sector and save lives.
This pandemic goes beyond the def...
Author : Hayat Al-Shoubaki
24 Nov 2020
Hydrodiplomatic Tools to Sustain the Jordan River Basin: Underwater Scarcity Conditions
The transboundary Jordan River Basin and its tributaries will always be important for Jordan, considering its religious, environmental, demographic and political signifigance. With annexation plans of the West Bank looming, it is essential to take into consideration that potential conflicts of exist...
Author : Reem Alhaddadin
01 Oct 2020
What's inspiring us - The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security
Here is our top pick over the recent months, utilised by Dr. Majd Al Naber, Team leader and Senior Researcher at WANA.
The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security, Marwa Daoudy (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Marwa Daoudy is a native Syrian scholar of environmental secu...
22 Apr 2020
Learning from Corona: building resilience for the climate crisis
Learning from Corona: building resilience for the climate crisis
15 organisations from four continents urge everyone to use this moment to prepare earnestly for a crisis we know is going to get much worse: the climate emergency. The coronavirus shows us the vulnerability of global interdependence a...
31 Mar 2020
العالم ما بعد "كورونا": إعادة تعريف التنمية البشرية
كحال كثيرين حول العالم، أحاول التكيف مع متطلبات الحياة الشخصية والمهنية المصاحبة لانتشار فيروس كورونا. الأزمة العالمية تعيد تعريف وتحفيز العديد من الخصال والمبادئ والقيم البشرية، مثل العناية الشخصية، والتوازن الحياتي، والتطوير الذاتي، ومساعدة الآخرين، والاهتمام بالبيئة وغيرها.
لنأخذ حماية البيئة مثا...
Author : Ruba Al Zubi
25 Mar 2020
فيروس كورونا: بين عودة الدولة وشكل النظام العالمي
قبل فترة وجيزة، رفعت منظمة الصحة العالمية مرتبة تفشي كوفيد-19، والذي يُعرف بفيروس كورونا، من درجة وباء إلى درجة جائحة. وذلك يشكل اعترافًا أُمميًا بانتشاره العالمي، داعيةً دول العالم إلى وضع خطط استراتيجية استعدادًا لتفشي المرض في مجتمعاتهم. سريعًا، التقطت دول عديدة حول العالم هذه الدعوة وباشرت بفرض ...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
02 Mar 2020
How could urban planners contribute to Social Cohesion in Cities
While most of the implemented programmes that promote social cohesion are based on people’s ideology, perceptions, and social behaviours, the impact of the physical built environment, that hosts people’s lives and their social interactions, remains less tackled. In the context of urban planning, to ...
Author : Hadeel Qatamin
02 Feb 2020
تهديد التطرف العنيف: بين المحلية والعالمية
بالرغم من العدد المتزايد لأنشطة المراقبة ومشاريع مكافحة الإرهاب، إلا أن التهديدات المحلية للتطرف العنيف تتصاعد وتتجه نحو فضاءات عابرة للحدود. يثير هذا التوجه إلى سؤال حاسم: كيف تعمَّقت الأصولية المتطرفة للصراعات المحلية وأصبحت عالمية الانتشار؟
في تقرير حديث لمركز الدراسات الاستراتيجية والدولية "CSIS...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
23 Jan 2020
التعليم الأردني وعباءة الماضي
إن اللحظة التي طور فيها المهندس الأسكتلندي، جميس واط، المحرك البخاري في منتصف القرن الثامن عشر كانت كافية لتُغير حاضر البشرية ومستقبلها بطريقة غير مسبوقة في أي اختراعٍ مضى. حيث إن المتتبع للتاريخ يرى أن هذا الاختراع هو أساس بداية ثورات التنمية والتطور التي ما هي إلا استمرار طبيعي للتطور الذي بدأه ا...
Author : Khalil Haddadin
02 Jan 2020
Creative Commons: Seeing beyond the surface of discrimination
The modern definition of “refugee” has been drafted by the United Nations 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees after the mass persecutions and displacements from the second World War. While some countries argue that ratifying this convention and any other agreement may challenge the st...
Author : Reem Alhaddadin
30 Dec 2019
Non-Jordanian Children of Jordanian Mothers
*This article was edited by the Researcher, Kareem Al-Sharabi.
More than 355,000 non-Jordanian nationals born to Jordanian women - known as ‘abnaa al urduniyyat’ - live in Jordan. While stopping short of granting them nationality, the Jordanian government has since 2014 started issuing “privileges” ...
Author : Lina AlHaj Ahmad
05 Nov 2019
Investment Citizenship is not Active Citizenship
Last July, Egypt’s parliament approved legislation that allows wealthy foreign investors to become Egyptian, becoming the second Arab country after Jordan to offer such a path to citizenship. Citizenship-by-investment (CBI) schemes are popping up across the globe as states compete to attract forei...
Author : Jonathan Thrall
27 Oct 2019
قراءة في مقتل أبو بكر البغدادي
في مؤتمر صحفي للرئيس الأمريكي دونالد ترامب، تم الإعلان اليوم عن مقتل زعيم تنظيم "داعش" الإرهابي إبراهيم عواد البدري، المعروف بأبو بكر البغدادي، إثر غارة للقوات الخاصة الأمريكية في شمال سوريا. بذلك، يتم وضع نهاية لسلسلة من الأخبار المترددة حول مقتل البغدادي مسبقاً، ونهاية لرحلة مطاردة طويلة استمرت ...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
26 Aug 2019
The Transitional Threat of Violent Extremism
Despite the growing number of surveillance activities and counter terrorism projects, local threats of violent extremism are spiralling upward into transnational vectors. This raises a critical question: nearly two decades into the “global fight against terrorism,” what went wrong? In other words, h...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
04 Aug 2019
الأردن وانتشار السلاح: مفترق طرق؟
ها هو الجدل يعود إلى الساحة الاردنية مرة أخرى وهذه المرة عبر مشروع قانون الأسلحة والذخائر الجديد المنتظر إقراره في الدورة الاستثنائية القادمة لمجلس النواب. تقضي أبرز بنود مشروع القانون الجديد في حصر التعامل بالأسلحة والذخائر فقط بالقوات المسلحة والأجهزة الأمنية والعاملين في القطاع الحكومي، مع وجود ن...
Author : Khalil Haddadin
25 Feb 2019
The Overlooked Phenomenon of Crowdsourced Terrorism
The establishment of Daesh’s self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate in 2014 sent ripples into the fabric of the global terrorist movement. While the international community focused on the recruitment of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs), the role of women and children, and Daesh’s media savviness, it lar...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
12 Dec 2018
Investing in Human Capital: The Base of a New Social Contract in Jordan?
Investment in human development is vital for Jordan’s survival, yet global economic policy has not given it enough consideration. Can the neoliberal economic model advanced by international financial institutions such as the IMF make room for the simultaneous development of the social sectors?
The I...
Author : Katrina Barker
25 Oct 2018
Violent Extremism: The Bubble that Keeps on Bursting
The international fight against violent extremism has been marked by cycles of bubble and burst: policy-makers turn a blind eye to structural causes until a violent extremist group emerges and bursts the safety bubble. Only then do governments rush to manage the threat. Yet as new affiliates have re...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
16 Jul 2018
Youth in Jordan: From Limited Participation to National Youth-led Movements
One fifth of Jordan’s population is between 15 and 24 years old according to the Department of Statistics. They are the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, and influencers, which makes their political participation increasingly important. Yet are Jordanian youth sufficiently engaged? And are ...
Author : Youssef Qahwaji
23 Apr 2018
Jordanian Youth: An Afterthought?
While Jordanian youth make up nearly two-thirds of the population, they remain largely excluded from decision-making processes. With every government reshuffle, the youth agenda — including the long-awaited National Youth Strategy — seems to be sent back to the drawing board. The message received by...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
27 Mar 2018
New Battlegrounds: Beating Radical Ideals
With the military defeat of Daesh, the so-called ‘Islamic State’, questions about the group’s future remain. As the battle shifts from one of might to one of thought, new weaponry is needed in the on-going ideological fight. In a recent publication, the West Asia–North Africa (WANA) Institute analys...
Author : Nadine Sayegh
01 Mar 2018
Let there be no more empty words
Over the past week, we have witnessed some of the Syrian conflict’s worst days of violence. Since the start of the government’s aerial bombardment campaign of the rebel-held suburb of eastern Ghouta on February 18, over 500 civilians, including 121 children, have lost their lives. A collective feeli...
Author : HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
19 Feb 2018
Engendering Radicalisation: Mothers and P/CVE
Mothers play a central role in their children’s lives by providing support and nurture that is unparalleled by others. Why is it then, that when violent actions and radical tendencies are being discussed, mothers are often overlooked as opposed to being supported and listened to as part of preventin...
Author : Alethea Osborne
08 Feb 2018
National or International Drivers: What Motivates Jordanian Youth?
Youth make up over 70 per cent of the Jordanian population. For many university graduates, entering the job market is a struggle due to the high unemployment rate, the lack of opportunities that match their skills, and a tendency of employers to value connections over merit. Securing a job with an i...
Author : Reem Alhaddadin
06 Feb 2018
Helping Jordan’s Firms Grow
Jordan’s economy has long been categorised as one dominated by micro and small firms. This causes it to grow more slowly than economies with higher numbers of large firms. Yet the question of how to inspire firm growth is conspicuously missing from the debate on how to improve competitiveness in Jor...
Author : Dorsey Lockhart
17 Dec 2017
What Social Contract Do Arab Youth Want?
On 17 December 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi was the spark that lit the fuse, changing the political landscape of West Asia and North Africa. What followed was a series of uprisings that swept across the region. As countries confronted their own version of the ‘Arab Spring’, it becam...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
06 Dec 2017
Behind Bars: The Relationship between Prisons and Radicalisation
It is no strange fact that prison systems across the world are culpable for producing increasingly violent criminals. Research from the US, the West-Asia and North-Africa (WANA) region, and some states in the EU supports this. Ideological radicalisation and violent extremism are no exceptions to thi...
Author : Nadine Sayegh
07 Nov 2017
In the Wake of its Military Defeat, Prepare for Daesh 2.0
The so-called Islamic caliphate, Daesh, is considered a leap in the world of global terrorism. Even after a military defeat, the prominence of the Daesh model and the harsh reality on the ground, make the return of Daesh, or a Daesh-like group, a likely possibility in the future.
The sprint of Daesh...
Author : Barik Mhadeen
15 Oct 2017
Development Priorities in Jordan: Who Decides on What?
Despite its middle income status, Jordan benefits from large amounts of development and humanitarian programming. This is largely due to its hosting of unprecedented numbers of refugees as well as its strategic positioning in the region’s current conflict dynamic. These funds usually come from inter...
Author : Youssef Qahwaji
30 Aug 2017
Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Jordan: Where Are We Now?
Jordan faces dire environmental challenges and is ranked the second most water-scarce country in the world. An already difficult situation is being exacerbated by a high influx of refugees and the effects of climate change. Jordan is also one of the few energy resource-poor countries in West Asia. I...
Author : Lara Nassar
14 Aug 2017
Education: The Forgotten Child of Humanitarian Response
Globally, more than 75 million children are out of school due to conflict and natural disasters, approximately the same number of children who are in school across the 28 countries of the European Union. This has devastating consequences. With displacement crises lasting on average 20 years, entire ...
Author : Juliet Dryden
09 Aug 2017
Countering Violent Extremism Research in Jordan: High Potential and Limited Impact
After almost three years of sustained interest in Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) research in Jordan, little has changed in the deep structures of governance. The relations between key stakeholders that can promise positive policy changes remain the same. Much hope was placed on the national CVE ...
Author : Dr Neven Bondokji
06 Aug 2017
Women in Jordan: The Missing Link
Jordan recently abolished Article 308 of the Penal Code, which permits a rapist to marry his victim to escape criminal charges, if she consents. Though this may be a victory, the fact that it is a contentious issue, points to a bigger problem.
Article 308 often resulted in the victim being forcibly ...
Author : Nadine Sayegh
11 Jul 2017
Youth Disengagement: Myth or Reality?
Are youth disengaged? This is the question I was invited to speak about recently at the first of a series of ‘youth dialogues’, organised by Wilton Park in partnership with Restless Development, the WANA Institute, and the British Council. Despite a lot of the mainstream media rhetoric arguing to th...
Author : Alethea Osborne
02 Jul 2017
Sexism in Terrorism: How Reporting on Women's Acts of Violence Distorts Reality
It strikes an odd chord that a gender variation appears when discussing terrorism. It is most apparent in regional and international media reporting on terrorist incidents perpetrated by women, and greatly hinders Countering Violent Extremism efforts as policy is best informed through evidence-based...
Author : Nadine Sayegh
21 May 2017
The Informal Sector: An Obstacle or Partner in Promoting Syrian Refugee Livelihoods?
As the Syrian refugee crisis enters its seventh year, the general discourse on Syrian refugee livelihoods has shifted. The crisis is now characterised as protracted, and host states are taking measures to include refugees in the labour market. However, in our rush to increase the participation of re...
Author : Shaddin Alhajahmad
07 May 2017
Enhancing Youth Enrolment in Education: What can Civil Society in Jordan Learn from the Private Sector?
Jordan should accommodate its rapidly growing population by prioritising the enrolment of youth in higher education. To facilitate this, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) should adapt to how society, as well as the stakeholders and beneficiaries of civil society programmes, are changing. One questi...
Author : Jamshid Masori
02 May 2017
Ma'an: Dangerous or just Desperate?
The Jordanian city of Ma’an, located 220km south of Amman, has many reasons for being distinctive in its national context. The southern city, surrounded by endless hot and dusty vistas, has been described by international media outlets such as The Economist and Al Jazeera as “a hotbed of ISIS”.
Acco...
Author : Alethea Osborne
20 Apr 2017
The Paris Agreement: A Gleam of Light
The impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt by populations world over. The World Bank predicts that certain cities will become unliveable, agricultural viability will decrease and pressure on already scarce water resources will escalate, potentially increasing migration and the risk of...
Author : Lara Nassar
21 Nov 2016
Informal Justice is Real Justice
I’m a member of that generation of scholar-practitioners who were present when customary justice programming was dismissed as not ‘real’ justice work. I can vividly recall a former boss telling me that “at [organisation to remain unnamed], the only justice system is the formal one, and playing in th...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
16 Nov 2016
Op-ed: What Does Trump Mean for the WANA Region?
If social media is anything to go by, then a healthy majority of the region’s citizenry is dismayed by the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America. No Arab could have missed the rhetoric Trump spent his election campaign claiming to stand for. We have heard his...
10 Nov 2016
Legal Empowerment through Cultural Understanding
Afro-American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said that “perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends”.
In the first half of...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
24 Aug 2016
On the Refugee Route Part V: Thickening Nostalgia, Shrinking Patience
After having spent a month following their odyssey from a rural village in Eastern Damascus to the industrial German city of Stuttgart, separating from the Kreker siblings midway through the Balkans was challenging personally. By this point, I had grown emotionally attached to the weathered yet resi...
Author : Dina Baslan
18 Aug 2016
Innovation in Humanitarianism Is Necessary, but It Will Not Bring Peace
Tomorrow, August 19th, is World Humanitarian Day. There will be an abundance of articles about it, but few of them will discuss what it really means to be humanitarian. The most important aspect of being a humanitarian is to end wars and to work to sustain peace. It is not about summits and conferen...
Author : Adel Elsayed Sparr