Arab Reform Initiative

On July 25, Tunisia marked the proclamation of the Republic. For five years now, that anniversary has been overshadowed by another: the day President Kais Saied closed Parliament in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year it coincided with a new crisis, a heatwave that triggered unprecedented power cuts and fires, met with a remarkable absence of the State: little communication, little discourse, and the usual accusations of conspiracy. Five years of repression, conspiracy theories, budgetary austerity, and empty sovereigntist speeches are leaving lasting imprints on the country. Our latest newsletter looks back at a trajectory we have followed since day one. Inside this edition is this economic briefing marking five years of Saied’s self-coup, where the promised “new model” has left little trace in the data. The series of infographics reads Tunisia’s economy from 2019 to 2025: a recession deeper than any of its neighbours’, five years lost simply to regain pre-COVID GDP, inflation that peaked at 9.3% and never fell below 5%, and public debt increasingly held by domestic banks and the Central Bank rather than foreign lenders. Together the charts trace one chain: high-rate internal borrowing crowds out credit, investment falls, and growth stays too weak to cut unemployment still near 15%, borne above all by youth, graduates, and women. The classic authoritarian bargain, silence for prosperity, could be neither reproduced nor revamped. To read the edition: https://lnkd.in/dAcp5YY5 #Tunisia

Jules Hatem presented his latest research work on Lebanon's flat tariff water regime, service failure and household coping pathways with Arab Reform Initiative 📄 The full paper: https://lnkd.in/eURs-VXN 🎥 The full talk: https://lnkd.in/eR6MTYGU

In this video, Nadia Jmal ARI’s assistant researcher in #Tunisia breaks down the concept of youth co-optation and explains how authoritarian regimes use programs, opportunities, and empowerment narratives to strengthen their legitimacy without pursuing meaningful reform. She also explores how this strategy has been central to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's approach to governing #Egypt. Watch the video to learn more, and read the full research paper here: https://lnkd.in/g5PQ6JAG Photo credit Hamda DHAOUADI / ARI Image Allies program

During Geneva's 2026 Digital Week, 6-10 July, the lead of ARI's Tech & Society Program, Andrew Findell-Aghnatios, joined discussions on safe and just frameworks for AI governance, co-led an interactive workshop, and connected with colleagues from around the world who are working towards a more equitable digital space. In this article, he reflects on the experience and thinks about how we can push these ideas going forward, drawing on his participation in the UN's inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance, ITU's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and AI for Good, and Map AI/B-Tech's Multistakeholder Convening on AI Governance.  CADE – Civil Society Alliances for Digital Empowerment, DiploFoundation, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stichting, SMEX, Forus Gloria Amofah-Adjekum -EMBA, MACL, BBA, Phillip Ayazika, Raymond Amumpaire, Stephanie Borg Psaila, Karajicic Slavica, Tinuade Oguntuyi , PMP®, David Iribagiza, Karolina Iwańska, Abdulghani Kataya, Jose Lambiza, Boris Begovic #GenevaDigitalWeek

في نهاية شهر حزيران من العام الجاري شاركتُ متحدّثاً في جلسة “العراق وسوريا: تبادل المعرفة بين الجيران” ضمن مؤتمر “مفترق الأزمات: النزاع والمناخ والبيئة في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا”، الذي انعقد في مدينة إسطنبول التركية بتنظيم من Arab Reform Initiative و Robert Bosch Stiftung. تحدّثت خلال الجلسة عن الأضرار البيئية الناجمة عن الحرب في سوريا، وخاصة تلك التي لا تزال خفيّة أو غير موثّقة بشكل كافٍ، وعمّا يُمكن أن يتعلّمه الصحفيون/ات والناشطون/ات السوريون/ات من تجربة العراق في توثيق الأضرار البيئية بعد الحرب، وعن الذي يجب توثيقه قبل أن تُعيد عملية إعادة الإعمار تشكيل الأدلة على أرض الواقع في “سوريا الجديدة”. ما يلي هو نص مداخلتي محرّراً، إضافة إلى بعض التعليقات التي أضفتها بعد الإجابة عن أسئلة الحضور أثناء المناقشة التي تلت الجلسة. https://lnkd.in/dEAJHsMF

Lebanon's water sector is buckling under pressures that no longer arrive one at a time. Climate change, decades of governance failure, financial collapse, and the war-inflicted destruction and weaponization of water since 2023 have converged into what can only be called a polycrisis one that threatens livelihoods, health, and wellbeing across the country. Making sense of this reality demands more than technical fixes. It requires a water justice lens: one that asks how power, inequality, and accountability shape who becomes vulnerable, who bears the costs, and who is left out of recovery. Organized in partnership with the Arab NGO Network for Development - ANND, the AUB Nature Conservation Center, the LEbanese Water Actors Platform (LEWAP), and the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. This conference treats water not as a resource to be managed, but as a public good and a human right placing social justice at the center of the conversation. It is organized around three complementary sessions, each building on the principles of water justice, and guided by four questions we believe are unavoidable: → Who has access to safe and affordable water? → Who is excluded? → Who bears the burdens of governance failure, conflict, and climate change? → And how can Lebanon rebuild water systems that are socially just, publicly accountable, and environmentally sustainable? The full agenda is below. We invite researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to join us in reframing water not as a matter of infrastructure alone, but of justice. 📅 [Tomorrow] 22/7/2026 📍 [Beirut] | to attend in Person: https://lnkd.in/eviha2ZT 🔗 To attend on Zoom: https://lnkd.in/ehJJeuq3 #WaterJustice #Lebanon #Polycrisis #WaterGovernance #ClimateJustice

Our Executive Director Nadim Houry joined Eve Irvine on France24 for a wide-ranging conversation on Lebanon’s diplomatic and long-term strategic challenges. Nadim offers a nuanced reading of President Joseph Aoun’s visit to Washington, arguing that its significance lies less in any immediate policy breakthrough than in how Lebanon repositions itself within a shifting regional order. He draws out the interconnected nature of the moment, showing how Lebanese politics, Israeli security calculations, U.S. regional strategy, Iranian influence, and Hezbollah’s evolving role cannot be understood in isolation from one another. Watch the full interview via the link below: youtu.be/UUqB94nYGEg?si…

When the fear of the Mukhabarat vanished, many Syrians rushed online to speak freely. But for Syrian women, one watcher has been replaced by a crowd. In a new Commentary, feminist journalist Zaina Erhaim, tracks coordinated smear campaigns targeting Syrian women since the fall of the Assad regime: sexualized threats, non-consensual images, deepfakes, and gendered disinformation, often intensifying where gender intersects with sect. Zaina also lays out what accountability could look like: Enforcing existing defamation provisions, writing a gendered lens into the law, repealing Article 28 of the cybercrime law, and building feminist regional solidarity networks that refuse to let women face abuse alone. Read the full commentary 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dqt4CTUu

Yemen is among the most water-scarce countries in the world, and years of conflict have only deepened the crisis: 15.4 million Yemenis lack adequate access to clean water. This report by our partners at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, maps 53 civil society organizations working on water issues across the country, finding that while CSOs have multiplied since 2012, most remain confined to project implementation and emergency response, largely excluded from the policy and legislative processes that would let them shape Yemen's water governance rather than simply respond to its failures. Read the full paper: https://lnkd.in/eXaArDaC #Yemen #water #CSOs

Lebanon’s water sector is facing a deep and interconnected crisis shaped by climate change, governance failures, economic collapse, environmental degradation, and the devastating impacts of war.   To better understand these challenges, this conference adopts a water justice perspective that places social justice, accountability, and human rights at the center of discussions on water governance. The event will explore critical questions around equitable access to safe and affordable water, the unequal burdens created by conflict and climate change, and pathways toward rebuilding sustainable and accountable water systems in Lebanon.   Organized in partnership with the Arab NGO Network for Development - ANND, the American University of Beirut Nature Conservation Center, the LEbanese Water Actors Platform (LEWAP), and the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI). Registration link on Zoom: https://lnkd.in/ehJJeuq3 To attend in person, please fill out this form: https://lnkd.in/eFJ-Yr7g More details about the event on our website page: https://lnkd.in/efpHZkGn Cover image taken by Leila Rossa Mouawad a contributing photographer to the “ARI Image Allies” program.   #WaterJustice #Lebanon #ClimateAction