Perspectives from a Different Beach

Guest Editors’ Introduction

Contents of the report are as follows: Long-term economic development: challenges and prospects for the Arab countries by Mustapha K. Nabli. Reform complementarities and economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa by Mustapha Kamel Nabli, and Marie-Ange Veganzones-Varoudakis. After Argentina: was MENA right to be cautious? By Mustapha K. Nabli. Restarting Arab economic reform by Mustapha K. Nabli. Democracy for better governance and higher economic growth in the MENA region? By Mustapha K. Nabli, and Carlos Silva-Jauregui. The political economy of industrial policy in the Middle East and North Africa by Mustapha K. Nabli, Jennifer Keller, Claudia Nassif, and Carlos Silva-Jauregui. The macroeconomics of labor market outcomes in MENA by Jennifer Keller, and Mustapha K. Nabli. Challenges and opportunities for the 21st century by Mustapha Nabli. Labor market reforms, growth, and unemployment in labor-exporting countries in the Middle East and North Africa by Pierre-Richard Agenor, Mustapha K. Nabli, Tarik Yousef, and Henning Tarp Jensen. Economic reforms and people mobility for a more effective EU-MED partnership by Ishac Diwan, Mustapha Nabli, Adama Coulibaly, and Sara Johansson de Silva. Cruise control, shock absorbers, and traffic lights by Mustapha K. Nabli. Trade, foreign direct investment, and development in the Middle East and North Africa by Farrukh Iqbal, and Mustapha Kamel Nabli. Making trade work for jobs by Dipak Dasgupta, Mustapha Kamel Nabli, Christopher Pissarides, and Aristomene Varoudakis. Exchange rate management within the Middle East and North Africa region by Mustapha Nabli, Jennifer Keller, and Marie-Ange Veganzones. How does exchange rate policy affect manufactured exports in MENA countries? By Mustapha Kamel Nabli, and Marie-Ange Veganzones-Varoudakis. Public infrastructure and private investment in the Middle East and North Africa by Pierre-Richard Agenor, Mustapha K. Nabli, and Tarik M. Yousef. Governance, institutions, and private investment by Ahmet Faruk Aysan, Mustapha Kamel Nabli, and Marie-Ange Veganzones-Varoudakis.

Drawing on the essays in this volume of Dædalus, as well as remena (Research Ethics in the Middle East and North Africa) workshops and meetings over the last several years, we reflect on what constitutes responsible social inquiry. We present the context for a “call to action” for universities, foundations, and other funders, publishers, and researchers. Through procedural, professional, and political recommendations, we offer guidance to address some of the ethical dilemmas in designing, monitoring, funding, conducting, and disseminating social science research on the Middle East and North Africa-and beyond.

Developing countries, including Egypt and North African countries, need to improve their quality of research by enhancing international cooperation and exchanges of scientific information, as well as competing for obtaining international funds to support research activities. Research must comply with laws and other requirements for research that involves human subjects. The purpose of this article is to overview the status of health research ethics in Egypt and North African countries, with reference to other Middle Eastern countries. The EU and North African Migrants: Health and Health Systems project (EUNAM) has supported the revision of the status of health research ethics in Egypt and North African countries, by holding meetings and discussions to collect information about research ethics committees in Egypt, and revising the structure and guidelines of the committees, as well as reviewing the literature concerning ethics activities in the concerned countries. This overview has revealed that noticeable efforts have been made to regulate research ethics in certain countries in the Middle East. This can be seen in the new regulations, which contain the majority of protections mentioned in the international guidelines related to research ethics. For most of the internationally registered research ethics committees in North African countries, the composition and functionality reflect the international guidelines. There is growing awareness of research ethics in these countries, which extends to teaching efforts to undergraduate and postgraduate medical students.

Milk products are considered as the essential food commodities for humans. Milk products contain essential elements for the human body such as protein, glucose, minerals and vitamins. Moreover, milk is considered the cheapest source of animal protein, an important resource for some related transformation industries and provides employment opportunities for a large number of small producers in both rural and urban areas. The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors which determine the supply and demand for liquid milk (henceforth milk) in the Middle East and North Africa in order to point out the main problems and constraints obstructing the milk production in this region. The research also attempts to understand the drivers for the development in milk production in the Middle East and North Africa.Total milk production in the Middle East and North Africa increased from about 12.57 million tons in 1990 to about 25.18 millions tons in 2008. This paper attempts to identify the factors which influence the effectiveness of production, consumption and foreign trade of milk in the Middle East and North Africa. The most important factors affecting consumption is the population, per capita income and produced quantity where a 1% increase in all of them results in increasing the quantity consumed by 1.3%, 2.86% and 0.611%, respectively. Milk sector provides employment opportunities for more than 25% of the working force in some Middle East and North Africa countries.

Research Article| May 01 2004 Collaboration and Empire in the Middle East and North Africa:introduction and Response Julia Clancy-Smith Julia Clancy-Smith Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2004) 24 (1): 125–129. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-24-1-125 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Julia Clancy-Smith; Collaboration and Empire in the Middle East and North Africa:introduction and Response. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 1 May 2004; 24 (1): 125–129. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-24-1-125 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsComparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East2004 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Collaboration and Empire in the Middle East and North Africa You do not currently have access to this content.

Rethinking the Ethics of Research Gregory E. Kaebnick Karen Maschke, associate for ethics and science policy at the Hastings Center, observes on the opposite page that all of the feature articles in this issue of the Report contemplate major changes to the ethical standards that govern research conducted on human subjects. The first two articles, by David Orentlicher and Lynn Jansen, ask whether informed consent, at least as it has been understood, is always necessary, and the third, by David Wendler, proposes that the way risks have been understood for certain kinds of research is inadequate. In asking whether informed consent is always necessary, the first two articles are in effect asking whether "coercive" methods of recruiting new subjects should sometimes be tolerated, or at least whether "coercion" is sometimes understood too broadly. This question recurs in an essay by Jennifer Hawkins and Ezekiel Emanuel, who argue that people who think about human subjects research often see coercion where none exists. Two of the departments also take up questions about research. Jeremy Sugar-man, in Policy & Politics, examines the developing debate over whether American researchers who run trials in foreign countries should adhere to the host country's requirements rather than to U.S. requirements, and a set of commentators from Vanderbilt University and the Department of Defense's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences argue in Perspective that scientific researchers generally need more training, and ongoing training, in the responsible conduct of research. These contributions to the Report reflect a recent trend in bioethics to reconsider some of the basic elements of the ethics of research on human subjects. One of the articles is prompted by an article in 2003 by Franklin Miller and Howard Brody that challenged the accepted wisdom on whether it is important for the experimental treatment and the treatment to which it is compared to stand in "clinical equipoise," meaning that reasonable experts disagree about which treatment is best. Most commentators have held that clinical equipoise must obtain if a trial is to be ethical. In effect, Miller and Brody held that much of the literature on the ethics of clinical research was mistaken. And last year in the Report, a team of authors led by Ezekiel Emanuel argued that a frequently accepted requirement for research conducted in foreign countries—namely, that the experimental intervention, if proven effective, be available in the country that hosted the research—is mistaken. The accepted wisdom on human subject research ethics is apparently not quite settled. A few years ago, there was a trend toward more stringent protection of research subjects, with the federal government temporarily closing down some universities' medical research pending investigations of the universities' adherence to federal regulations for the protection of research subjects. But now the federal government seems to have backed off, and some commentators are leaning toward the view that the protections for subjects are too heavy-handed or are applied in clumsily sweeping ways, thereby getting in the way of good science. And throughout, there appears to be a growing belief that some of the cornerstone concepts of the ethics of human subjects research, whether or not they provide adequate protections, are in need of rethinking. [End Page 2] Copyright © 2005 The Hastings Center

Data transparency about critical economic issues may be key to driving growth and enhancing trust in government in the Middle East and North Africa. Several knowledge products and technical analyses on the region have been greatly constrained by the lack of availability of detailed data, and the relatively outdated nature of many available datasets. The goal of this study is to ascertain the state of data systems in the Middle East and North Africa region. Through analysis of several indicators, with their limitations in mind, the study uses descriptive analyses and uncovers six stylized facts of the region: (i) developing economies in the Middle East and North Africa have poor data ecosystems, largely due to the prevalence of conflict; (ii) developing economies in the Middle East and North Africa as a group have experienced the largest deterioration in data systems over time; (iii) data systems in richer economies in the Middle East and North Africa region underperform relative to their income peers; (iv) Gulf Cooperation Council economies underperform in data openness, especially online access, despite having the resources for online features; (v) the regulatory framework for data (data infrastructure) is poor throughout the region, especially in Gulf Cooperation Council economies; and (vi) the dispersion of source data scores – a measure of availability and timeliness of micro data – in the region suggests that national statistical offices in the region could learn from each other. Furthermore, the study summarizes data availability and timeliness for specific macro, micro, and public health indicators for countries across the region. The need for forging a social contract for data is discussed, as well as the role international institutions can play through a statistics compact for the region.

Researchers in studies from multiple countries suggest that sexual and gender minority people experience high rates of violence, stigma, and discrimination, as well as mistrust of health care providers and systems. Despite growing evidence related to sexual and gender minority health in North America and Europe, we know little about the health of this population in the Middle East and North Africa. We aimed to comprehensively examine the literature related to the health of sexual and gender minority people in the Middle East and North Africa and to identify research gaps and priorities. We conducted a scoping review informed by the framework recommended by Arksey and O'Malley and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) tool. We searched the following databases: PubMed (using Medline All on the Ovid platform), PsycINFO (Ovid), CINAHL (Ebsco), and Embase (Ovid). The search strategy combined terms for the geographic region of interest (Middle East and North Africa) and the population of interest (sexual and gender minority). Each was operationalized using multiple search terms and, where available, controlled vocabulary terms. Research articles were identified and assessed for inclusion using an explicit strategy. Relevant information was extracted and synthesized to present a descriptive summary of existing evidence. Research designs of the 98 articles we reviewed included quantitative (n=73), qualitative (n=20), and mixed methods (n=5). Most studies were conducted in Lebanon (n=33), Pakistan (n=32), and Iran (n=23) and focused mainly on gender minority individuals (n=46) and men who have sex with men (n=32). Five themes emerged from the review: sexual health (52; 53%); mental health (20; 20%); gender identity (17; 17%); violence and discrimination (7; 7%); and experiences with the healthcare system (2; 2%). Although researchers focused on multiple health outcomes in some studies, we included them under the theme most closely aligned with the main objective of the study. Although our study is limited to few countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, we found that sexual and gender minority individuals face multiple adverse sexual and mental health outcomes and experience high rates of stigma, discrimination, and violence. More research is needed from countries outside of Lebanon, Pakistan, and Iran, including community-based participatory approaches and multi-level intervention development. Nurses and other healthcare providers in the region need training in providing inclusive care for this population.

Based on personal accounts of their experiences conducting qualitative and quantitative research in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, the contributors to this volume share the real-life obstacles they have encountered in applying research methods in practice and the possible solutions to overcome them. The volume is an important companion book to more standard methods books, which focus on the “how to” of methods but are often devoid of any real discussion of the practicalities, challenges, and common mistakes of fieldwork. The volume is divided into three parts, highlighting the challenges of (1) specific contexts, including conducting research in areas of violence; (2) a range of research methods, including interviewing, process-tracing, ethnography, experimental research, and the use of online media; and (3) the ethics of field research. In sharing their lessons learned, the contributors raise issues of concern to both junior and experienced researchers, particularly those of the Global South but also to those researching the Global North.

Clinical trials, the empirical discipline of medical experimentation conducted on human subjects, have engendered a paradigm shift in medical research. The need for new clinical studies is paramount in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with its rising cancer incidence and demand for efficient oncology treatments. This paper comprehensively reviews the challenges, opportunities, and future directions of phase I oncology clinical trials in the MENA region. Early-phase trials are vital in determining drug dosage and assessing toxicity, bridging the gap between preclinical research and clinical practice. Considering the unique landscape of MENA, this review explores regulatory aspects, specific hurdles faced, potential advantages, and areas for improvement in conducting these trials. Various future directions can be pursued to maximize the potential of phase I oncology trials in MENA. While regulatory bodies like the Ministry of Health adhere to the International Conference on Harmonization-Good Clinical Practice guidelines, a unified system meeting high standards would yield better results. Strengthening research infrastructure, establishing research centers, incorporating clinical trial education into the curriculum, and improving access to medical facilities are crucial. Enhancing consumer understanding of research would facilitate increased participation and promote sustainability in trial recruitment. Navigating various funding sources would open the door for more funding opportunities. Collaborations between academia, industry, and regulatory bodies, both international and local, should be fostered to promote knowledge sharing, resource pooling, and harmonization of standards. Such collaborations would contribute to the sustainability of clinical trial activities by leveraging collective expertise, sharing research infrastructure, and distributing the burden of regulatory compliance. By adopting these strategies, the MENA region can advance its capacity to conduct early phases of oncology trials and contribute significantly to the global medical research landscape.

The epidemiology of Chlamydia trachomatis in the Middle East and north Africa is poorly understood. We aimed to provide a comprehensive epidemiological assessment of C trachomatis infection in the Middle East and north Africa. We did a systematic review of C trachomatis infection as well as a meta-analysis and meta-regression of C trachomatis prevalence. We searched PubMed and Embase, as well as regional and national databases up to March 13, 2019, using broad search terms with no language or year restrictions. Any document or report including biological measures for C trachomatis prevalence or incidence was eligible for inclusion. We extracted all measures of current (genital or rectal), recent, and ever infection with C trachomatis. We estimated pooled average prevalence in different populations using random-effects meta-analysis. Factors associated with prevalence and sources of between-study heterogeneity were determined using meta-regression. We identified a total of 1531 citations, of which 255 reports contributed to 552 C trachomatis prevalence measures from 20 countries. No incidence measures were identified. Pooled prevalence of current genital infection was 3·0% (95% CI 2·3-3·8) in general populations, 2·8% (1·0-5·2) in intermediate-risk populations, 13·2% (7·2-20·7) in female sex workers, 11·3% (9·0-13·7) in infertility clinic attendees, 12·4% (7·9-17·7) in women with miscarriage, 12·4% (9·4-15·7) in symptomatic women, and 17·4% (12·5-22·8) in symptomatic men. Pooled prevalence of current rectal infection was 7·7% (4·2-12·0) in men who have sex with men. Substantial between-study heterogeneity was found. Multivariable meta-regression explained 29·0% of variation. Population type was most strongly associated with prevalence. Additional associations were found with assay type, sample size, country, and sex, but not with sampling methodology or response rate (about 90% of studies used convenience sampling and >75% had unclear response rate). There was no evidence for temporal variation in prevalence between 1982 and 2018. C trachomatis prevalence in the Middle East and north Africa is similar to other regions, but higher than expected given its sexually conservative norms. High prevalence in infertility clinic attendees and in women with miscarriage suggests a potential role for C trachomatis in poor reproductive health outcomes in this region. National Priorities Research Program from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation).

The overriding theme of this work is that women’s struggles, human rights, myths, and literary expression are indispensable to an understanding of the modern culture and socio-political development of the Middle East region. The work demonstrates that no aspect of Middle Eastern history and modern evolution was shaped in isolation of women’s lives and contributions to society. The dictionary covers the biographies and written work of prominent historical female figures in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as 20th-century feminists, both male and female, who advanced women’s rights over many years. The Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa includes a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and a dictionary section that has over 400 cross-referenced entries on various aspects of Middle Eastern feminism and culture, touching upon religious themes such as Sharia laws, Islamic marriage, divorce, and inheritance practices. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the culture and history of women in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Middle East and North Africa are one of the most conflict-prone regions. Due to its geopolitical position and oil production, the Middle East has always been the trump card in the game, both before World War II and during the Cold War, still today. Why do wars persist in the Middle East? Why has the situation in the Middle East deteriorated to this extent? Is rentier economics always a vital variable explaining political instability in the Middle East? After empirically analyzing the causes of political instability in the Middle East using various data, the study suggests that the experience of being a colony of Britain, France, and Italy hurt society and that the critical geographic location between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War suffered various harmful effects. On the other hand, the result also shows that manufacturing weakness due to the oil economy, high unemployment rates, and lack of democracy are all critical explanatory variables for political instability. Since the 2000s, the United States has increased its energy self-sufficiency rate through the shale oil and gas revolution. The Middle East is an option for the United States to buy oil. On the other hand, the Middle East is essential for the United States to export weapons. The Middle East has faced a geopolitical crisis in recent years due to these factors.

This chapter examines the place of secularism in political formulae and governance in the Middle East and North Africa. Secularism, or more precisely its absence, structures the political environment in which Jews in Tunisia and Morocco and Arabs in Israel resided in the 1970s, and still reside. Indeed, as made explicit in this volume’s introductory chapter, their status as religious minorities in states that reject secularism renders them exemplars of a particular minority group type. The present chapter discusses the ways that secularism may be understood, including the view that secularism is absent when a state ties its identity and political mission to the religion of the majority. This and other problems that some charge are associated with the absence of secularism are examined in the first part of the chapter. Particular attention is then given to a plan presented by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the late 1960s. The PLO called for the establishment of a “democratic secular state” in Palestine, arguing that this would not only address the problems associated with a rejection of secularism but also lay the foundation for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The chapter next reviews the arguments of those who oppose secularism in the Middle East and North Africa; and finally, notwithstanding the arguments of those who favor secularism, the chapter considers the reasons that most states in the Middle East and North Africa have not established governance structures that separate religion and politics.