SOAS academics make key contribution to major new World Bank report

20 July 2020

SOAS academics from the Politics Department and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD) have made a key contribution to the World Bank’s major new report in cooperation with the German Development Cooperation titled: Building for Peace: Reconstruction for Security, Sustainable Peace, and Equity in the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr Harald Heubaum, Dr Michael Buehler, Dr Behar Sadriu, Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam and Felicia Jackson delivered one of the key background research papers informing the report.

The report combines the evolving thinking of World Bank experts with original external research to propose a multidisciplinary approach. More than 15 think-tanks and policy institutions, academic researchers, policymakers, government officials, and other international organizations and NGOs, from the MENA region and globally, collaborated over a period of two years. Feedback from citizens of the region, experts and practitioners was incorporated through a series of consultative workshops and online surveys conducted anonymously in Iraq, Libya and Yemen.

Dr Harald Heubaum, Lecturer in Global Energy and Climate Policy at CISD and Project Leader of the research said: "This report represents a fresh approach the World Bank and the German Development Cooperation are taking in supporting lasting peace in the MENA region. Such an approach does not seek to simply rebuild the past. Instead it requires investment in and support for truly sustainable, equitable and inclusive reconstruction and development. SOAS has made an important contribution to reshaping thinking in the World Bank and re-focusing international development finance at a critical point in time."

Read the report.