The expert workshop aimed, mainly, at addressing the most recent geopolitical, security, and economic developments in the southern Mediterranean region. To achieve its aims, a myriad of experts from and on the region and from various backgrounds gathered together to deliver their expertise and share thoughtful insights regarding the immediate and looming challenges facing the region.

During the two-day event, qualitative and thought-provocative discussions have been raised by the experts. The first panel examined the current dynamics of cooperation and confrontation in the region where the panelists presented their geopolitical insights with regard to the intraregional relations and the growing role of many regional powers like Turkey, the UAE and the KSA in the region. Moreover, the panelists shared their perspectives on what is ahead for the region in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that might trigger new alliances in the region. This panel was also punctuated by recent Arab Barometer data inputs with regard to political support, economic expectation and perceptions of international actors in the MENA region.

The second panel was devoted to the changing security landscape in the southern Mediterranean where the panelists drew a picture of the pressing security challenges concerning jihadism, organized crime, and the spread of multiple non-state armed groups in the region. The experts stressed the importance of moving away from the dominant paradigm of subsuming the responses to transnational organized crime under the fight against terrorism.

The third and last panel was mainly based on future-oriented analyses aimed at scrutinizing the new possible conflicts threatening the region and the challenging economic woes spanning the region and further undermining its stability, particularly the questions of rising food and energy prices and the reconsideration of social subsidies systems in numerous countries in the region. Furthermore, the panelists presented a series of recommendations that aim at creating and sustaining stability in the southern Mediterranean region.