Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf, Program Manager – GRC Environmental Security and Sustainability Program, participated in the launching ceremony of the Arab Development Portal and the regional Workshop on Sustainable Development Goals organized by the United Nations Development Program (MENA region office), which took place in Amman, Jordan on 25-27 April 2016. Dr. Raouf participated in the working group that focused on environmental issues.
Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf, Program Manager – GRC Environmental Security and Sustainability Program, participated in the 91st Rose-Roth Seminar of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly - Mediterranean and Middle East Special Group, which took place on 20-22 April 2016 in Rabat, Morocco. The event was hosted and co-organized by the Parliament of Morocco. Dr. Raouf delivered a presentation entitled “Environment, Water and Security in the Middle East.”
Dr. Christian Koch participated in the discussion on the release of the Eighth Annual Arab Youth Survey entitled “Inside the Hearts and Minds of Arab Youth” and held at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. The Arab Youth Survey 2016 explored attitudes among Arab youth in 16 countries in the Middle East and North Africa based on 3,500 face-to-face interviews. Sunil John, CEO of ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller that published the survey, presented the findings following by an overall discussion on the survey’s results.
Dr. Oskar Ziemelis, GRC Director of Cooperation, Sanya Kapasi and Imen Jeridi Bachellerie represented the GRC Foundation at the 2nd Innovation Summer School, which took place as part of the INCONET-GCC2 project in Doha, Qatar. The summer school, entitled: “Health Research and Innovation: The Development of Personalized Healthcare to Address Chronic Non-communicable Diseases (NCD)” was hosted by Qatar University and brought together 25 researchers and experts interested in Healthcare from the GCC and the EU. The overall goal of the INCONET-GCC2 project is to support a science-and-technology-related policy dialog between the GCC countries and the European Union, and to strengthen GCC-EU cooperation among research and innovation actors. As part of the researcher mobility task in the INCONET-GCC2 project, the GRC Foundation organized a second call for joint GCC-EU projects in the area of Healthcare to stimulate researcher mobility between the GCC and the EU. Interested researchers from the GCC countries proposed joint projects on societal challenges in the health innovation field, focusing specifically on the development and use of personalized healthcare for chronic non-communicable diseases. Eight GCC-based researchers received researcher mobility grants from the project to support their participation in the Doha summer school. Following the summer school, joint research proposals will be tracked and supported through researcher–mobility-specific advice with the goal of extending and enhancing GCC-EU researcher mobility.
Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf, Program Manager – GRC Environmental Security and Sustainability Program, participated in the Regional Stakeholder Consultation Workshop on Implementing Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) in Asia-Pacific, which took place on 24-25 March 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting was part of the UNEP 10 Year Framework Program (10YFP) focusing on SCP. Dr. Raouf participated in the meeting as an Asia Focal Point for the Science and Technology Major Group of UNEP.
Dr. Christian Koch participated in a roundtable discussion about German Gulf policy and Germany-GCC relations as part of a study visit by three GCC academics to Berlin. Dr. Koch joined Sarah Hartmann and Sebastian Sons of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and members of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation to discuss German policies in the Gulf, the role of think tanks in German Politics and how to improve the position of the GCC states in Germany.
