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NORTH AFRICA / SAHEL

MIDDLE EAST

TRANSNATIONAL

Weekly readings

DISPLAY_WEEK

NORTH AFRICA / SAHEL

The Specter of Politics as Usual in Kenyas 2022 Election

Kenya’s election season is now in its final stretch. On August 9, 2022, voters across the country and members of the diaspora will head to the polls for another general election. Nationally, two front-runners—Deputy President William Ruto and long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga—are facing off in a contentious race to succeed outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is completing his second and final term in office. This election cycle comes at a time of significant economic discontent, with many Kenyans concerned about rising costs of living, public debt, and pervasive corruption. Given that Kenyatta is not up for reelection and that the country’s ruling coalition has splintered, Kenya will see a leadership change no matter what the outcome is.

MIDDLE EAST

The unrealized potential of cooperative security in the Arab Gulf

Over the past three decades, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has undergone a geopolitical transformation, punctuated by a series of critical junctures: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990-1991, the American and NATO operations in Afghanistan the following decade, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Arab uprisings of 2011. These regional geopolitical shifts – often dictated by domestic drivers – have been accompanied by global geostrategic changes. As a result, the Gulf sub-region, encompassing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran, has emerged as the new center of gravity in the MENA region.

TRANSNATIONAL

Reading Of The Week: The State of Climate Ambition

Against a backdrop of increasing scientific concern and public awareness about the climate crisis, UNDP set out to review if policymakers were keeping the promises they made in 2019 when the global state of climate ambition was assessed with UNFCCC in the first NDC Global Outlook report, The Heat is On. We were curious. Is the Paris Agreement working? And if yes, then who is doing the work? Which countries are leading the way on ambition – and which ones are falling behind?