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The concept of sustainable development first presented in the Brundtland Report in 1987 underlined the simultaneous and mutually reinforcing pursuit of economic growth, environmental improvement, as well as global and social equity together with an emphasis on global distribution. It marked the start of a new phase in the hitherto antagonistic environment-economy relationship based on the recognition that ecosystem degradation and global warming pose serious threats both for poverty reduction and development. During the 1990s, sustainable development became the predominant feature of the environmental discourse, underlying global, supranational, national, regional, and local environmental policy strategies. A key implication of the interdependence of environmental-development goals as outlined in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) Scenario Report emphasizes the need for a meaningful integration of environmental sustainability concerns in national development plans and strategies of individual donors and inter-governmental development agencies. In addition, there is also the need for closer coordination between multilateral environmental agreements and other international institutions in the development policy sphere. It is necessary to understand the forces that will determine environmental change as well as to choose a set of environmental policies that will move us toward a sustainable future. This, in turn, needs a better understanding of social institutions, and ecological and economic processes. After an extensive analysis of these issues, this paper presents steps that the GCC could take in framing the right environment policies.
Islamic finance emerged in the post-colonial period through the search to developan authentic Muslim identity in response to economic and financial matters. Sincethe late 1950s, modern Muslim economists (as academics) have been involved indeveloping an Islamic economic paradigm through the proposal of an alternativeIslamic system understanding with its foundational principles, institutions, workingmechanisms, and economic and financial instruments. By the 1970s, it was clearthat despite having Muslim states, the move into such a new paradigm was notpossible due to lack of political will in these countries. Consequently, the moraleconomy approach based normative Islamic economics had to be dismissed dueto the adverse political conditions. The underdeveloped nature of theoretical andpractical knowledge of Islamic economics also played a role in negating the discourseto developed an economic system of Islam. However, in an attempt to sustain the‘dream’, the efforts of social agents such as Muslim academics, economists, bankersand technocrats resulted in Islamic banking as the new institutional formation in1975 in the form of a commercial Islamic bank based on the earlier Islamic financialexperiences including the short lived Mith Ghamr (Islamic) social bank experiencein early 1960s in Egypt and Tabung Haji social (Islamic) investment institution in
Islamic finance in modern times emerged in the form of commercial banking in the mid-1970s as a response to the endogenisation of religious norms in shaping the norm and substance of financing to produce a moral economy-oriented proposition for developing economies and societies since Islam, as a religion, also provides the norms, values, principles and injunctions related to everyday aspects of economic and financial activity. While Islamic banking is a modern phenomenon, Islamic financing itself has been in practice within the periphery of the Muslim world ever since the Prophet Muhammad revealed such principles about fourteen centuries ago.
Islamic finance is considered a modern version of the historico-religious forms of financing generated through the normative principles of Islam along with the customs of Arabia during the time when the Qur’an was revealed fourteen centuries ago. While in its historic form institutionalisation cannot be located, the practice of Islamic financing has existed in the periphery of the Muslim world since the practice was taught to his disciples by the Prophet of Islam. This un-institutional form of Islamic financing had continued to exist throughout the centuries along with the decline in Muslim economies over the centuries and as well as during the colonial era.
We are delighted and honored to have edited Sustainable Development Challenges in the Arab States of the Gulf and appreciate the generosity of the people who have given us their support. First of all, we are extremely grateful to the attendees of the Gulf Research Meetings in Cambridge, UK, who participated in our workshops Sustainable Development Challenges in the GCC, in 2013, and Addressing the Sustainability Agenda in the Gulf Region, in 2014, who have given their trust and willingness to publish their work and experiences; without them this book would not be available.
Most of the contributors to this volume attended a workshop held in Cambridge, UK in late August 2014. The workshop was sponsored by the Gulf Research Center (GRC). Special thanks go to Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the GRC, Dr. Christian Koch, director, Sanya Kapasi, administration manager, and Ms. Elsa Courdier, administrator. Also I would like to thank Kai Henning Gerlach and Dagmar Konrad from Gerlach Press. After the workshop I worked closely with all the contributors to upgrade and revise the papers. I cannot thank them enough for their valuable contributions. Finally would like to thank my assistant Ms. Alexandra Holden for her hard work.
This book is the outcome of the workshop that was held at the Gulf Research Meeting organized by the Gulf Research Center in Cambridge, UK in August 2014 directed by Mohamed Ramady and Annika Kropf (Workshop Number 5: Employed, yet Underemployed and Underestimated: Leadership, Ownership and Work Motivation in the Gulf). The Editors wish to thank all those who participated in the workshop and especially the Gulf Research Center and its Chairman Dr. Abdulaziz Sager for offering the opportunity to gather so many scholars with diverse interests and expertise who made this publication possible. The workshops would not have been possible without the dedicated guidance and follow up support by the GRC, especially Dr. Christian Koch, Sanya Kapasi and Elsa Courdier
The chapters in this book were selected from papers presented at the Gulf Research Center’s Annual Conference held at Cambridge 24-28 August 2014 and were redrafted taking into account comments made by participants in the Future of Yemen panel. The editors would like to acknowledge the contribution made by participants and to thank the GRC, especially Christian Koch and Elsa Courdier, for their excellent support at the conference and since. They also want to thank Shelagh Weir, John Shipman among others for commenting on some of the chapters in draft. Hanna Siurua of the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies provided invaluable help in preparing the text. Above all they are very grateful for Helen Lackner who gave a great deal of time in helping with the editing and collaborating with the editors in writing the introduction.
Security issues in the Gulf region have been of critical importance to global stability over a prolonged period. Seldom, however, have they reached as critical a turning-point as they have now. Three factors account for their current salience. First, shifts in the demand for Gulf oil have transformed the Gulf ’s economic relationships with outside countries. Rapidly increasing demand from Asian countries (especially China and India), declining demand from the United States and a static level of demand from the European Union, have propelled China and India into the positions of the Gulf ’s first and third largest trading partners. Second, developments in the Middle Eastern region have posed destabilising challenges and threats to all of the Gulf countries. The challenges and threats have been both external to the Gulf region and within it (or, at least, with a reach which directly affects Gulf regimes): the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Israel/Palestine in particular, and the nuclear issue in Iran. Finally, the shifting global balance of power, with China, India, and Russia (and to some extent the other two BRICS countries) pursuing more assertive foreign policies than before, the external presence in the Gulf becomes more open to debate and contest. Beyond the confines of the Gulf itself, moreover, there is the wider issue of control of the sea-lanes in the Indian Ocean, which are essential to the export of Gulf oil and the import of the critical needs of Gulf countries.
This volume contains the contributions to the Gulf Research Center workshop entitled: “Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Relations with Post-War Iraq: A Strategic Perspective,” held during the July 2013 Gulf Research Meeting in Cambridge, UK. The papers examine the history and future of the often fractious relationship between Iraq and the GCC countries. The backdrop is the US dominance of security arrangements in the Arabian Gulf region for most of the post-war period. Prior to the new millennium, the region’s major security threat was perceived to be the mounting rivalry between a GCC-US camp on the one hand and an Iranian camp on the other. Some semblance of equilibrium had been achieved through the late 1990s, but the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 created new fault lines. In the invasion’s aftermath, regional peace was maintained by the overwhelming presence of US troops both in Iraq and in the GCC more generally. The 2011 withdrawal of US troops from Iraq plunged the region into a state of disequilibrium, and current developments suggest a trajectory of mounting instability. The volume’s contributions explore the underlying reasons for the region’s instability from a variety of perspectives and with an emphasis on the GCC’s relationship with Iraq. Topics covered include: Iraq’s federal architecture, the highly controversial role of Iran, the effects of regional sectarianism, the possibility of Iraq becoming a member of the GCC, the impact of Chinese oil demand, the evolving nature of US regional military deployments, and the expanding use of social media by religious clerics. The volume’s goal is to produce operational recommendations for senior government figures. To that end, each author provides two lists of recommendations for improving the region’s stability: one targeting GCC policymakers and the other targeting their Iraqi counterparts. There is a strong consensus concerning the need for a more inclusive and multilateral approach to regional security, and for any such approach to be spearheaded by the region’s principle stakeholders: Iraq, Iran and the GCC countries themselves. However, the precise nature of a potentially successful common security strategy remains an area of considerable controversy.
Housing is what creates and defines cities, and affordable housing is what makes successful and scalable cities. Indeed, housing is the spatial expression of a society’s values and morality, and of its commitment to an inclusive society. In the Gulf region, characterized by rapid urbanization and astonishing transformation over the last two decades, housing is absolutely urgent as a national priority. In the twenty-first century, nations will compete economically based on the effectiveness and efficiency of their cities, which throughout history have been the engines of ideas, innovation, and wealth creation. As nations urbanize, and even more as they become progressively wealthier, housing rises as a national policy priority, because housing quality, availability, and affordability are all matters in the national economic and political interest. The inescapable gravity of land-use economics means that as a nation’s cities become engines of wealth generation, housing cost rises even as the definition of ‘market quality’ is likewise rising. The result is that affordable housing is always a national imperative, because below-market-income people can never afford market quality housing. The Gulf region has an unusually large number of factors that make the emergence and development of quality affordable housing a challenge without obvious parallels or examples elsewhere in the world. As a result, the region presents a set of housing and affordable housing delivery challenges unique in their own right. These challenges will require solutions based on innovation in both the private and public sectors.
The Gulf region’s primary economic relationships are rapidly shifting from West to East. Relations with China, Japan and South Korea are becoming increasingly strategic in nature: based on a degree of mutual dependence far greater than is present in Gulf-Western relations. The balance of global politics will be critically affected by this powerful emerging relationship. This book provides documentation of the trend and examines some of the political and strategic issues which follow from it.
This book examines the strategies and dynamics through which state-society relations in the Arab Gulf region have been cultivated, and explores the alternative political, social, economic and popular changes that threaten these relations. The work focuses on understanding how state sovereignty has been shifting to accommodate internal social, cultural, and intellectual forces and how these forces have managed to balance social and political powers in order to function within and co-exist alongside the state. Case-studies give specific examples of how social forces, popular movements, social media and youth culture are actively influencing cultural attitudes and practices as well as political actions.
This volume presents the outcome of an Agriculture Workshop organized by the Gulf Research Centre Cambridge (GRCC), and held at Cambridge University, UK during the Gulf Research Meeting 11-14 July 2012. Co-directed by the editors, the workshop, entitled “Environmental Cost and Changing Pace of Agriculture in the Gulf States” was attended by participants from Australia, Bahrain, India, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, UK, and Morocco. These scientists, educators, researchers, policy makers and managers share their experience in agriculture in the Gulf States, with the aim of helping to improve agriculture production and thus bridge the gap between local production and the food import. The papers gathered here were presented at the workshop, and have all passed through rigorous peer review by renowned scientists. The diverse papers present various aspects of agriculture production in the evolving face of climate change and dwindling water resources in the region. The book covers topics such as the prospects of agriculture in a changing climate; the potential of climate-smart agriculture; the impact of food prices, income and income distribution on food security; improved efficiency in water use; challenges in using treated wastewater in agriculture; investment in foreign agriculture and agricultural research and development. The papers span the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, with specific case studies set in Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Climate change requires coordinated global responses. All nations, including major Gulf Arab oil producers, should implement policies to contain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet all realistic scenarios point to the continuing global need for fossil fuels. The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) thus face a dilemma between continuing development and use of their fossil fuel endowments and increasing reliance on low carbon sources, such as nuclear, solar or wind. This book edited by Giacomo Luciani and Rabbia Ferroukhi explores various facets of the dilemma. The volume is a product of a workshop held the 2012 Gulf Research Meeting organized by the Gulf Research Center, Cambridge.
This book edited by Ranjit Gupta, Abubaker Bagader, Talmiz Ahmed and N. Janardhan explores how growing economic ties between Asian countries and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) could impact their future relationship. It postulates that the stage is now set for strategic partnerships and highlights how some Asian countries have been explicit about showcasing their power and influence in the Gulf region. While exploring an alternative and broad-based security architecture, it identifies the challenges that any probable Asian cooperative approach could face as the countries of the Arabian Gulf show signs of looking beyond the United States to develop their long-term strategic interests. The volume is a product of a workshop held the 2012 Gulf Research Meeting organized by the Gulf Research Center, Cambridge.
Gulf Charities and Islamic Philanthropy in the “Age of Terror” and Beyond edited by Robert Lacey and Jonathan Benthall is the first book to be published on the charities of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf, covering their work both domestically and internationally. From a diversity of viewpoints, the book addresses the historical roots of Islamic philanthropy in religious traditions and geopolitical movements; the interactions of the Gulf charities with “Western” relief and development institutions – now under pressure owing to budgetary constraints; numerous case studies from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia; the impact of violent extremism on the sector, with the legal repercussions that have followed – especially in the USA; the recent history of attempts to alleviate the obstacles faced by bona fide Islamic charities, whose absence from major conflict zones now leaves a vacuum for extremist groups to penetrate; and the prospects for a less politicized Islamic charity sector when the so-called “war on terror” eventually loses its salience. The volume is a product of a workshop held the 2012 Gulf Research Meeting organized by the Gulf Research Center, Cambridge.
In 2011, the world witnessed a tide of political changes in the Arab world, a region notorious for its political turbulence and unpredictability. Yet, the world was taken by surprise by the events of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. This series of events established, perhaps, the beginning of a new era of non-violent political activism and resistance against well- and long-established unpopular regimes in the region. The stability and longevity of the political systems dictated political relations and alliances in the world for a long time. Hence, the global reaction was a mixture of feelings – tension, surprise and even fear about the changes that were taking place, even though they were expected in some quarters. None could claim that they knew that such “creative anarchy” was capable of bringing about such quick and widespread changes and challenges that may not be limited to just political changes.
We would like to thank Georgetown University in Qatar and Gerd Nonnemanfor their financial assistance in this project. We would also like to thank QatarUniversity and the Gulf Research Center Foundation, especially Christian Koch, fortheir support and encouragement both in conceiving and completing this project.Special thanks to our contributors for their feedback, counsel, and expertise aboutthe variety of topics and issues covered in this book. Finally, we owe our editor,Malcolm Campbell, a debt of gratitude for his patience and advice throughout theprocess.
There is now little doubt that the Gulf region’s primary economic relationships are shifting from West to East.1 This book documents this trend and examines some of the political and strategic issues which follow from it. While the overall trend can be seen in terms of a West to East re-orientation, the re-orientation is in fact more complex than this. The key element is the orientation towards the newly-industrialising economies of Asia, and most specifically towards China and India. In some respect the leading developed economies of Asia, Japan and South Korea, occupy a similar position to Western countries, with a declining (but still very strong) share of Gulf trade.
Since the last decade of the 20th century, there has been an increase in South-South trade, which is also reflected in the trade between the Gulf and Latin American countries. While trade between the two sides grew substantially during the last decade, there are also renewed attempts to cooperate in other fields. The opening of embassies in Latin America by the Gulf countries and vice versa in the last few years, direct flights between Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela to some of the capitals of the Gulf region, investments by the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in some Latin American countries and the holding of the Arab-South American Summits starting from 2005, among other exchanges, reveal the growing convergence of interests between these two regions. This book covers, in particular, an aspect that is often neglected in area studies, namely the exchange as a whole between the two regions, since most studies on these regions tend to focus on the interactions with developed countries or emerging economies such as China and Russia. From a historical, economic and politically strategic point of view, the book offers a critical examination of the foreign policies pursued by the Gulf and Latin American countries in the renewed exchange that is taking place now. Attention is given to the importance that both regions place on the elaboration and implementation of their foreign policies as well as the strategies envisaged. From the Gulf perspective, some of the chapters show how Latin America became a part of the Gulf countries’ search for global engagement, as the result of a process emanating from their own internal and regional needs. From the Latin American perspective, the chapters assess the new strategies and interests which guide the development of closer links with the Gulf against the backdrop of the shifts and continuities of their foreign policies. This volume discusses the different perspectives in the evolution of recent interests and issues at stake in this emerging relationship between the Gulf and Latin American countries.
Asia constitutes the hub of the transformation of global economic power today. The Gulf, itself part of Asia, is of increasing importance in this transformation. This book documents the growing interactions between the economies of the Gulf states and those of the rest of Asia. These relationships are critical to how the world economy develops over the next decade, and how economic (and perhaps strategic) power is distributed. This volume, edited by Tim Niblock with Monica Malik, assembles cutting-edge thinking by 16 specialists on a wide variety of topics covering Arab Gulf relations with China, Japan, ASEAN, Korea and India, as well as with Russia, Iran and Turkey. The book is published by Gerlach Press.
Changing geopolitical realities have seen the Gulf region turning to Asia and Africa to build new economic links, while strengthening old ones. This proactive internationalism is visible not just in economics and energy, but also in politics and security where a host of new agreements has been developed. This work provides an overview of the ways in which the GCC states now need to move ahead with reforms that will reflect issues such as raised expectations from a period of high revenues and the region’s demographics.
Spurred by high oil revenues, credit growth and economic diversification, real GDP growth rates in the GCC countries have been high in international comparison. They have been comparable to those of other emerging and developing markets and considerably higher than those of the world or the advanced economies on average (see Figure 1). Qatar and UAE, in particular, have witnessed breakneck development with growth rates in double digit territory until 2008. In 2009, only two GCC countries faced a mild recession (Kuwait and the UAE). While the IMF expects GCC growth to lag emerging and developing economies in the years to 2015, it will still remain at or above the world average. Together with growth in intra-GCC trade in the wake of the GCC customs union, this will inexorably lead to increased demand for financial services.
In most important regards, the economies of the GCC have been doing exquisitely well during the last decade – but in one critical area, there has been stagnation, if not regression: levels of labor productivity and, closely related, the involvement of locals as employees in the private economy. While public sectors in the GCC are increasingly nationalized, private labor markets remain dominated by foreigners: The share of national employees in the private labor force lies between one percent and a quarter in the various countries of the region. Due to decades of unrestricted labor imports from the developing world, average wages in the private sector are very low, as are skills levels and productivity. The region is locked into a development path where many businesses have substituted the minimization of labor costs for skills and productivity development – to the detriment of nationals, who can seldom compete on price and who, due to the availability of public sector employment, have limited incentives to work on their marketable skills in any case.
