In search of economic dignity in the Middle East
Bessma Momani explores the link between change and demographics in her new book, Arab Dawn: Arab Youth and the Demographic Dividend They Will Bring. The following is an excerpt.
Bessma Momani / @b_momani
Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Balsillie School of International Affairs and a CIGI senior fellow
Dr. Bessma Momani is a Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Balsillie School of International Affairs and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation. She has been Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center and at the Amman Institute, a research centre to improve local governance in the Middle East. She has authored and co-edited over six books and of over 50 scholarly, peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters that have examined the IMF, the World Bank, petrodollars, regional trade agreements in the Middle East and economic liberalization throughout the Arab Gulf and the Middle East. Dr. Momani has received a number of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council awards and prizes for her research on global economic governance and political economy of the Middle East. More recently, Dr. Momani has been a public commentator and analyst on the Middle East and the Arab Spring. She is a regular contributor to CBC radio and a Middle East analyst on CTV News, CBC The National, Al-Jazeera English, Bloomberg TV, BNN and TVOs the Agenda. She has also published numerous op-ed articles on the Arab Spring in Canadian and international news outlets as well maintaining her own CIGI blog and Huffington Post column.
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The ‘us against them’ narratives are hardening on both sides with little room in the middle for moderates says Bessma Momani.
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