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All opinion
All opinion
17 Jun 2025
Upholding Syrian refugees’ agency is key for long-term stability
The fall of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, has marked a new chapter in Syria’s history with hopes of newfound freedom and liberation, 14 years after the revolution. For millions of Syrians displaced abroad, this new era has prompted a reckoning—whether now is the right time to return home. Th...
Author : Salma Nasser
28 Nov 2024
Twin realities uncovered by the war on Gaza
It has been over a year since Israel’s war on Gaza began—a year of genocide, mass displacement, systematic destruction, and unprecedented levels of dehumanisation of Palestinians in Western media. Since then, the conflict has intensified and expanded across the region, with escalations seen in the W...
Author : Salma Nasser
29 Jul 2024
مقال رآي/ قرار الكنيست الاسرائيلي بتصنيف وكالة الغوث وتشغيل اللاجئين الفلسطينيين (أونروا) كمنظمة إرهابية
لاقى قرار الكنيست الاسرائيلي بتاريخ 22 من تموز العام الحالي بتصنيف وكالة الغوث وتشغيل اللاجئيين الفلسطينيين (أونروا) التابعة للأمم المتحدة كمنظمة أرهابية وابلا من الادانات من المجتمع الفلسطيني والاردني والدولي. حيث قالت حماس في بيان لها أن سلطة الاحتلال "تسعى لإنهاء القضية الفلسطينية وفي مقدمتها ق...
Author : Dr Yara Shaban
17 Aug 2022
Children are victims of the remnants of the wars on Iraq
يُعاني العراق منذ عقود من الازمات والحروب وحالات عدم الاستقرار والأمن، وما تزال مخلفات العقوبات الاقتصادية والحِصار الشامل تنعكس على تراجع جميع قطاعات الحياة من الصناعة والزراعة والكهرباء والبناء والتعليم والصحة. فرغم الموارد الطبيعية التي يمتلكها العراق، إلا أن نحو 40 % من العراقيين (40 مليون نسمة)...
Author : Esraa Al Sheyab
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
26 Jun 2016
Future War: A Review of David Kilcullen’s ‘Out of the Mountains’
What will future conflict look like? This question is the subject of David Kilcullen’s 2013 offering, Out of the Mountains; The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (2013). It challenges us to question our preconceptions, to break away from siloed thinking and to be open to contributions from other dis...
Author : Kim Wilkinson
15 Jun 2016
Can Women Preachers Prevent Violent Extremism?
The way in which Imams and religious leaders can help preventing violent extremism (PVE) is often discussed by academics, experts and policy-makers. Little is mentioned, however, on the role of women preachers (known as wa’ethat or murchidat in Arabic). This is not very constructive for PVE purposes...
Author : Dr Neven Bondokji
01 Jun 2016
The Weakness Of Indices: The Deceptive Hibernation Mode In WANA Will Fool You Again!
Last week, Freedom House celebrated its 75th anniversary of advocating for freedom. I like Freedom House – mostly because I like freedom. Every year, I read their annual report on the status of freedom in the world with interest. Naturally, I focus on their findings in the WANA region. According to ...
Author : Adel Elsayed Sparr
24 May 2016
The Need for a New Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism in the WANA Region
Over the past few years, violent extremism has ascended as the most perplexing security threat of present times. There is wide agreement on the need to prevent and counter violent extremism, but the question of how is not so easily answered. Current efforts range from comprehensive programs that foc...
Author : Leen Aghabi
12 May 2016
The Head-cam Video Daesh Doesn’t Want You to See
You may have seen the Daesh helmet-cam video released by VICE on April 27, titled What It’s Really Like to Fight for the Islamic State. Contrary to the slick content pushed out by the Daesh media machine, this video reveals what life is really like for Daesh fighters on the front lines – and the pic...
Author : Kim Wilkinson
11 May 2016
Beyond The Refugee Crisis: Combatting Educated Outmigration
This article first appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 23 April 2016
One need only glance at the headlines of any major news carrier to know that human migration has become a defining issue of the post-Cold War global economic order. But while European leaders squabble about the line b...
Author : HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
28 Apr 2016
What’s Inspiring WANA: Al-Durra Food Factory
Interviews are perhaps one of the most engaging ways to do research. For one of our upcoming research projects (stay tuned), we were on the lookout for Syrian investors who have chosen Jordan as a safe haven for their industrial operations. Al-Durra, a food manufacturing ‘giant’, was recommended by...
Author : Mays Abdel Aziz
25 Apr 2016
60 Million Refugees: A Crisis That Has Outgrown Its 65-Year-Old Solution
This article first appeared in the LA Times on Febuary 21, 2016
The number of refugees, asylum-seekers and other displaced persons exceeded 60 million globally last year. More than half of the refugees have been uprooted not for months, but for years upon years.
It's clear that the international leg...
Author : HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
25 Apr 2016
Beirut's Bold Step: Reinforced Tolerance
This article first appeared in Lebanon's The Daily Star on March 25 2016
In 2010 the Lebanese government took a bold and innovative step in the name of national unity, social cohesion and tolerance among peoples.
The government marked a national holiday to celebrate the Annunciation – a commemoratio...
Author : HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
25 Apr 2016
Guns Alone Won't Stop ISIS
Syrian refugee children attend a class at a makeshift school set up in a tent at an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan, August 11, 2015. Credit: AP
This article first appeared in Haaretz on April 3, 2016
At the end of WWII, world leaders, horrified ...
Author : HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
19 Apr 2016
Planning Syrian Peace? Understand its Wars
Syria is ravaged not by a single war but multiple interconnecting conflicts. Even disregarding the Kurds’ gradual push for autonomy in the North or the dramatic fight against ISIS in the East, Syria’s civil war is comprised of at least two related yet distinct wars. Although the 2011 revolution beg...
Author : Emily Hawley
29 Mar 2016
Troubled Waters – Daesh and Water in the Conflicts in Syria and Iraq
4,500 years ago, on the banks of the Tigris, what might be described as the world’s earliest water conflict took place between the Sumarian city-states of Lagash and Umma. Fast forward to 2016, and again battles are being waged for control over the precious resource in the WANA region. Water is bein...
Author : Kim Wilkinson
24 Feb 2016
What’s Inspiring WANA: Jordan’s Resilience Amidst Regional Crises
Every few years, when it becomes apparent that the favoured approach is not winning the fight against world poverty and conflict, a new jargon emerges. The latest catchphrase is resilience, a concept initially coined in the natural sciences. After a quick perusal of the websites of international dev...
Author : Leen Aghabi
07 Feb 2016
What's Inspiring WANA: If you read one book on radicalisation in 2016, let it be this one
“I had always been taught – and had passionately believed – that the presence of Islamism meant justice, and the absence of it created injustice. But now I began seeing things differently.” – Radical, Maajid Nawaz
In Radical, Maajid Nawaz takes the reader on a journey from growing up in Essex, detai...
Author : Kim Wilkinson
31 Jan 2016
2015: Humanity hit a record low in the WANA region
In the Atlantic, Charles Kenny recently claimed that 2015 was the “best year in history for the average human being”. True, the world is “better-educated, better-fed, healthier, freer, and more tolerant”, but let’s not allow global aggregates feed complacency. How much does a better-fed global pop...
Author : Leen Aghabi
24 Jan 2016
The beginning of the end: why the diplomatic process tells us that war in Syria is concluding
Syria. That’s really all you have to say. And if you wanted to elaborate, just go with what Staffan de Mistura said: The Syria crisis is the worst failure of the international community since the Second World War, and has the potential to extend beyond the region. All the challenges, the suffering, ...
Author : Adel Elsayed Sparr
14 Jan 2016
Meet our new Research Fellows
This January, the Institute brought on two new Human Security team members - Senior Research Fellow Adel Elsayed Sparr and Research Fellow Leen Aghabi. Last week, we spent a few minutes getting to know our new arrivals and heard about what they're going to be doing over the next year, and what they...
11 Nov 2015
Planning for the unpredictable: exploring transitional justice options for a post-return Syria
Currently, Syria is the battleground of one of the largest ongoing international conflicts. The Syrian conflict, since its emergence in 2011, has seen hundreds of thousands of fatalities, created millions of refugees, and set the backdrop for numerous international human rights and humanitarian viol...
Author : Adam Lhedmat
11 Oct 2015
Four Syrian Futures
The conflict raging in Syria shows no sign of abating; it is plagued with too many actors and too many interests at odds with peace. Nonetheless, preparing for even the ugliest of calms is vital, not just for Syrians but for the broader West Asia-North Africa region. To aid this process, the West As...
Author : Emily Hawley
01 Oct 2015
Forging New Strategies in Protracted Refugee Crises
Read and download the WANA Institute's full "Forging New Strategies in Protacted Refugee Crises: Syrian Refugees and the Host State Economy: Jordan Case Study" report here
The civil conflict in Syria poses the most complex and immediate humanitarian challenge to the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) reg...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
28 Sep 2015
Europe Should Lead by Example and Bring International Refugee Policy into the 21st Century
Europe’s failure towards the refugees at its borders is finally receiving the attention it deserves. This is an historic moment which offers European leaders the opportunity to make a serious impact, not only on the lives of those who have survived perilous journeys to the continent, but on the rele...
Author : Sean D. Thomas