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The shockwaves of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions imposed on Moscow are being felt around the globe, including in the MENA region.
In the Middle East and North Africa, the conflict is exacerbating an already volatile and complicated situation.
Many of the MENA countries ware already struggling to curtail the fallouts of the pandemic, when they found themselves after Russia’s Ukraine invasion facing an unprecedented economic crisis and the prospect of a sharp increase in energy and wheat prices as well as the possible disruption of food supply. There is wariness that if not properly addressed this situation could lead to a new wave of social unrest in an already unstable region.
Even though the devastating effects of civil wars in many parts of the region are not making the headlines as often as they used to be in the past, the humanitarian consequences of years of military hostilities have been worsening in many places. This is most notably the case in Yemen, Libya and Syria. Many of these countries are mired in deep political and economic crises. Despite international efforts, permanent settlement and national reconciliation prospects remain exclusive.
Tensions persist also in Israel and occupied territories where negotiations are stalled and the hope generated by the Oslo Process for a two states solution is waning. Even in Iraq the effects of the conflict still reverberate. Negotiations with Iran to restore the joint comprehensive Plan of Action on (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program seem for now stalled. The indirect US-Iran talks in Doha have ended without any progress. Distrust of Tehran’s design continues to represent a major source of tension between Gulf countries and Teheran, and the US, Israel and the Iranian regime.
In fact new challenges are reshaping the region’s order and the world as a whole. Nowhere is this more evident than around the Mediterranean sea and in Sub-Saharan-Africa which have progressively become an area of global competition, and of deep political tensions. Terrorism and extremism, armed conflicts, economic and social instability, collapse of the eco-systems and transnational criminal networks are today major features in many South Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan countries. They require the adoption of an innovative and holistic approach and a strong determination to put an end to global security threats and chronic regional conflicts.
I would like to focus on three major issues which I think deserve a special attention:
- Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa
The Mediterranean has been since time immemorial at the confluence of civilizations, culture, religion, trade and migration.
Today developments in this vast region which encompasses Southern Europe, MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa show that peace and security are inseparable from democratic, economic and social progress. They also highlight the need for closer cooperation among countries of both sides of the Mediterranean to tackle common challenges related to extremism, terrorism, immigration ( both legal and illegal) and ecological challenges. The Global South mainly MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa is today the theatre of major security and economic risks. Extremism, illicit trade in weapons, narcotics, civil wars and sectarian divides are major features in many countries of the region. Conflict in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Greec-Turkish maritime disputes, the unsolved Cyprus crisis and the continuing dispute between Algeria and Morocco over the Western Sahara are serious sources of tension in the region.
Instability in the Sahel has exacerbated competition among regional and global powers for influence and economic opportunity. In the meanwhile, dire economic situation, deteriorating climate conditions and mounting security threats in parts of Africa have increased the flux of irregular immigration towards Europe. Countries like China, Russia, Turkey, and Israel absent from African scene until early years of the beginning of the century are now increasing their economic, political and security presence in Sub-Saharan-Africa. Trying to fill the vacuum left by the departure of French and EU troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, Centrafrica, Russia is, according to many reports, deploying its private Wagner militias in these countries. China is also increasing its military and security presence while pushing its massive economic and commercial interests in most of countries of the African continent. It is known to maintain at least one military basis in Djibouti.
All too often the response to security challenges in the MENA/Africa region is largely handled through traditional security arrangements and ad hoc solutions. Such approaches have shown their limits and carry the risk of prolonging unresolved conflicts when not backed by serious efforts to address the root causes of conflicts.
Countries of the Sahel are witnessing an unprecedented increase of terrorist activities, illegal arms and narcotics trafficking and the collapse in most cases of the ecosystems due to drought, desert expansion and deforestation. Such threats are adding to insecurity and instability and provoking human disasters as illustrated by massive local displacements of many segments of the local population of the rise in illegal emigrations towards Europe. In trying to help the affected African countries combat extremist insurgencies, Europeans partners increased support for border control by providing equipment and training programs for police and Army forces. Though useful to temporarily limit the immigration flow across the Mediterranean, these measures are not enough to tackle the root causes of the multiple political economic and social crises gripping the many African countries. Support should be rather directed to institutional building, and shoring private investments and human resources developments.
- The war in Ukraine: devastating effects in MENA/Sub-Saharan Africa region:
- Beyond the immediate perils in and around Ukraine, the Russian invasion and the European response to it are likely to affect power and politics in the MENA area and the South as a whole. The shift of attention towards security and subsequent economic reconstruction in Eastern Europe risks to relegate the Euro-Med Process to a second row among the priorities of the EU.
There is a strong feeling that Europe will be more preoccupied by its eastern flank, with less resources available for regional development projects in the South or for vertical integration.
The focus would be rather limited to combatting illegal immigration, trans-border trafficking and terrorism. The attention span of European nations to tackling the roots causes of illegal migration, security threats and ecological crises south of the Mediterranean will be limited and it should not.
Within Arab and African countries themselves reforms will be also put on the backburner and political and democratic transitions will lose much of their momentum.
With Europe depending at around 40 per cent level from Russian gas and with newly imposed economic financial sanctions by Europeans and their allies against Russia leaders, oil and gas exporting Middle Eastern and North African countries will be able to increase their political leverage among European leaders by proposing to fill the gap left by the vacuum in Russian gas supplies. The margin is however increasingly limited as MENA oil producers reach the ceiling of their potential output.
Even within such limits, these coutries will jockey for better economic and political divideds in exchange for their oil and gas supplies.
- The economic impact of the War :
MENA and Sub-Saharan countries rely heavily on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine. The current war could lead to severe food crises in a region already under heavy economic and social pressures. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that hunger could affect 55 million people across the region. The conflict has also increased pressure on energy resources, driving up the prices of oil and gas and other commodities particularly in non-energy producing countries such as Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Yemen.
Food security in the region is also at risk. Egypt is the world largest wheat importer with 80% of its imports coming from Russia and Ukraine. Lebanon imports 60% of its wheat from Ukraine. Tunisia imports 50% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine and the trade balance with Russia is largely in favor of that country mainly due to food grain imports.
Tourism is another important sector badly hit by the pandemic and likely to further suffer from the war in Ukraine. Tunisia for example receives regularly around 630.000 tourists per year from Russia and Ukraine. Due to travel restrictions most bookings have been cancelled. The same could be said about Russian and Ukrainian tourists to Egypt and Turkey. The war has hindered the normal influx of tourists from the two countries. While they constituted about a third of total number of tourists visiting Egypt and Turkey annually.
Other MENA fragile countries, like Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, are also exposed to the negative impact of food stuff and grain price hikes and shortages. Syria imports roughly two thirds of its needs in wheat and oil from Russia. Lebanon imports from Ukraine and Russia more than 90% of its grain and only has according to the recent Lebanese Central Bank figures a month of grain reserves.
Yemen imports about 40% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. There are acute food shortages in that country and the ongoing war in Ukraine will make life more difficult for a population already in distress and where millions face the specter of famine and starvation.
According to the World Bank, the MENA region, which accounts for only 6% of the world total population, is the most exposed region to food insecurity.
In Sub-Saharan-Africa the conflict in Ukraine occured when most countries were gradually recovering from the pandemic. Many countries in the region are particularly vulnerable to the war’s effects, especially higher energy and food prices, reduced tourism inflow and potential difficulties accessing international capital markets. The conflict is likely to intensify socio-economic pressure, public debt and will boost inflation rates. The region imports one third of its grain supply from Russia and Ukraine.
c-Regional conflicts
The Ukraine war, at the heart of Europe, risks to deflect attention from regional conflicts of the MENA region. Multilateral institutions especially the UN Security Council, already deeply divided on how to solve regional conflicts, particularly in Libya, Syria and Yemen could find themselves unable to effectively contribute to conflict settlement. Libya which missed, late December, the opportunity to elect a new legitimate leadership is again on their brink of new violent showdown between two competing governments claiming legitimacy: advocating new elections despite the chaotic situation is quite unrealistic.
In Syria: the war in Ukraine not only impacts the situation in that country but the two conflicts are intertwined. Syria provided since 2015 an operational ground for Russia for weapon testing in addition to serving as a military base for both their airpower and navy in a strategic location on the Mediterranean. The staunch support provided by Syria to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the importance of military and strategic cooperation between the two countries will make it more difficult for the UN Security Council to adopt any further resolution on the Syrian issue. Russia will veto any resolution against the Syrian regime in Damascus.
In general, from Moscow’s perspective, instability in the Middle East is a bigger problem for Europe than it is for Russia. With the exception of Syria and Iran where Moscow holds vested strategic interests, Russia could play more the role of spoiler than that of an active peace builder, unless obviously its gets its way. It is quite difficult to imagine a scenario in which the war in Ukraine will not adversely affect international efforts to resolve conflicts in the region.
The war in Ukraine is surely going to increase instability of the MENA Region rather than advance the agenda of peace. The rapidly deterioration of relations between Russia and the West will have an impact on various ongoing conflicts across the region. It will certainly widen the chasm within the UN Security Council making it difficult if not impossible to reach any consensus among the P5 on eventual settlement of the different crisis in the Region.
- What is required to tackle the challenges and improve the security cooperation
- The US and the EU should act immediately to limit the economic and social fallouts of the Russian war in Ukraine. They should particularly address the worries stemming from the blockade of Ukraine grain exports due to Russian invasion. Foods crises loom in many MENA and sub-Saharan African countries and should urgently be addressed before becoming a source of human disaster and massive immigration and instability in the whole region.
- Encourage home grown reforms favoring good governance and democratic transitions in the Region. The war in Ukraine should not serve as an excuse to turn away from the serious crises that some countries of the region are facing. A special emphasis should be placed on macro-economic reforms to make the region more attractive for business and foreign investments and to further encourage regional integration.
Lack of economic progress has affected the credibility of democratic transition process and eroded trust in political elites. It can serve as breeding ground for extremism and terrorism, increase instability in the whole region and encourage desperate young people to opt for illegal immigration towards Europe.
- On a broader basis, Europe and US have to reengage with the MENA region and to project a serious commitment to an even handed approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue. There is a wide perception of Western double standard in the region. The hopes pinned on the peace process have dimmed, which explain at least in part the alignment of Arab public opinion and sometimes Arab governments, on Russia’s position in its war against Ukraine. Ideas about new regional security arrangements are worth discussing. But they will not gain durable traction without a minimum level of attention to the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
A firm commitment to a two state solution could create a new momentum for peace in the region, shore up security and open new opportunities for investments and trade and new partnerships which are crucial in alleviating poverty, eradicating the causes for extremism and terrorism and improving the standard of living for large segments of the population in the MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa.
- A special effort should also be made to end the war in Syria, to decrease tension in that country, resettle refugees and stop foreign manipulation of its domestic, ethnic and sectarian makeup. It will add credibility to the international resolve toward the restoration of peace in Syria and the whole region and the emergence of new political leadership in Damascus.
- In Libya there is a need, from the US and the EU to exert further pressure on Libyan main actors as well as regional powers and their proxies on Libyan soil to stop or prevent hostilities, continue negotiations under UN umbrella and lay the ground for free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections in the country, soon. But a more focused and pragmatic approach by the international community is needed to avoid the fiasco of the December 2021 elections while preventing tension from spinning out of control. Major Western stakeholders should avoid the suspicion of being only interested in insuring the continued flow of oil exports from Libya while the UN has still to demonstrate a clear vision of where its efforts are likely to lead Libya in the near to medium term.
- Fifty years after the creation of the Arab League in 1945, Arab economic integration remains elusive in contrast with European and south Asian cases. Despite numerous initiatives, the region lacks institutional mechanisms to carry out this integration process on a broad regional level. Lacking adequate regional mechanisms, the region has failed to cooperate effectively on issues related to pandemic and food security. It is likely to fail to meet the challenges posed by climate change and the collapse of ecosystem in many countries of the region.
- A more stable and integrated Maghreb would serve as a reliable partner and help favoring settlement of chronic crisis in the region (including the crisis in Libya and the prevailing tension between Algeria and Morocco on the Sahara issue). A stable integrated and prosperous Maghreb will offer new opportunities for investment and trade and partnership between Western and North African companies. It will also serve as a bridge linking Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa. It will beef up the 5+5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger), increase the coordination among the concerned countries and the members of the UMA (Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania). This will undoubtedly help combatting the threats of terrorism and illegal immigration across the Mediterranean. Much of that will hinge on reduced tensions between Morocco and Algeria.
- The US and the EU should also partner with MENA states and civil society to build a new regional institutional framework which will serve as a platform to promote dialogue among countries of the region, help encourage preventive diplomacy and resolve pending conflicts.
The MENA lacks institutional platforms similar to that performed by OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). A new Security Architecture will offer the most needed platform to discuss matters of stability, peace, democracy and development in the Region. It will encourage political dialogue as a way to solve differences and promote preventive diplomacy. It will also help bridge differences and build trust between different stakeholders in the MENA Region and beyond. A special effort should also be made to consolidate the African Union Commission, the peace and security apparatus in Africa and support peace making and peace implementing operations in the continent.
Khemaies JHINAOUI