Regions

This paper presents an overview of large-scale violence by Islamist extremists in key African countries. The paper builds on previous publications of the Institute for Security Studies on the nexus between development and conflict trends, and it seeks to provide an overview of the evolution of the associated terrorism through quantitative and contextual analysis using various large datasets. The focus is on the development and links among countries experiencing the worst of this phenomenon, especially Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria and Somalia, as well as the impact of events in the Middle East on these African countries.

The present Report offers ideas on how to shape the forthcoming period of Community support beyond the year 2020. The analysis builds on the report “The future of Cohesion policy – Report I” which reflected on the challenges and developments at the local and regional level, focusing mainly on the efficiency and effectiveness of implementing Cohesion Policy (CP). The present Report looks at concepts and models of CP (mainly its territorial dimension) and points out the main current challenges that are most likely to shape the future economic, social and territorial structures.

This second Report in the study series offers ideas on the future of CP. It is structured around two main parts, the first on models of growth, cohesion and well-being, and the second on new ideas and choices for EU CP. Thus projections and assumptions – in particular in the third section of the Report – are of a long-term nature. The present Report largely builds on an extensive desk research including a comparative literature review as well as relevant analyses and reports carried out by the authors of this paper. In addition, the analysis is fed by the results of an online survey carried out with stakeholders who took part in the seminars on the future of CP. Finally, independent interviews were carried out with relevant stakeholders with deep insight and considerable experience in the field of CP.

After a surge in prosperity over the past decade fueled by rising oil prices, Saudi Arabia’s economy is at an inflection point. We see a real opportunity for the country to inject new dynamism into its economy through a productivity- and investment-led transformation that could help ensure future growth, employment, and prosperity. In a new McKinsey Global Institute report, Saudi Arabia beyond oil: The investment and productivity transformation, we discuss how the country has significant opportunities to transform its economy to become more sustainable and less dependent on oil. Among our findings:

- The oil price boom from 2003 to 2013 fueled rising prosperity in Saudi Arabia, which became the world’s 19th-largest economy. GDP doubled, household income rose by 75 percent, and 1.7 million jobs were created, including jobs for a growing number of Saudi women. The government invested heavily in education, health, and infrastructure and built up reserves amounting to almost 100 percent of GDP in 2014.
- The country can no longer rely on oil revenue and public spending for growth, in the face of a changing global energy market and a demographic transition that will significantly increase the number of working-age Saudis by 2030. The current labor participation rate is 41 percent, and productivity growth of 0.8 percent annually from 2003 to 2013 trailed many emerging economies.
- Our model integrating Saudi Arabia’s economic, labor-market, and fiscal perspectives shows that even if the country responds to these challenging conditions with policy changes such as a budget freeze or immigration curbs, unemployment will rise rapidly, household income will fall, and the fiscal position of the national government will deteriorate sharply.
- However, a productivity-led economic transformation could enable Saudi Arabia to double its GDP again and create as many as six million new jobs by 2030 (exhibit). We estimate this would require about $4 trillion in investment. Eight sectors—mining and metals, petrochemicals, manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, tourism and hospitality, healthcare, finance, and construction—have the potential to generate more than 60 percent of this growth opportunity.

Vegetation is a threat for electricity transmission when overhead high-tension lines are crossing forest areas. For this reason, Transmission System Operators (TSO) often proceed by regular vegetation destruction in order to prevent any electrical blackout that could be triggered by trees, by contact or by fall.

The innovative LIFE Elia-RTE project (funded partly by EU) decided to think about alternative methods that could ensure not only electrical safety, but also enhance biodiversity ! These methods should aim at protecting species and natural habitats encompassed by the European Natura 2000 legislation. Indeed, for a good ecological state, we need core areas and connection corridors. This is where high-tension lines have a strong potential to be converted as green corridor for biodiversity.

On a 30 years timescale, biodiversity-friendly vegetation management has been estimated to be 1.4 to 3.9 cheaper than traditional vegetation management ! And not only for its cost savings, it also brings many other benefits.

An annual collection of wide-ranging essays by CSIS experts, 2016 Global Forecast discusses the issues that will matter most to America and the world’s security and prosperity in the year ahead.

Good governance is based upon foresight that allows decision makers to make informed choices. The Committee of the Regions (CoR) has turned to strategic foresight to anticipate the forthcoming changes within the EU political system. The exercise is a second step in strategic foresight at the horizon of 2025, which follows the report on the future challenges facing the CoR and European local and regional authorities (LRAs).
The aim of this second report is to address the CoR’s future role and institutional positioning within the European political architecture. It draws up five future-based scenarios with predictions about the evolution of the CoR's institutional and political role, its associated powers and relations with other EU institutions and stakeholders. For each scenario, the report analyses the consequences for the overall EU institutional setup, the evolution of parliamentarism, the supranational decision-making process and the CoR mandate.

The report Future of cohesion policy examines the main issues of debate around the cohesion policy in order to set up the political framework of discussion. Methodologically, this first report is based on an analysis of past debates, predominantly in regional EU fora. Desk-based research was supplemented by thematic discussions with other EU institutions, experts and key stakeholders in the scope of a seminar. Furthermore this study series on the Future of cohesion policy should provide a new impetus to the work of the Committee of the Regions and its members in the policy debates on the efficiency and effectiveness of Cohesion Policy from the perspective of local and regional authorities as well as the main topic of the research: The Cohesion Policy beyond 2020.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy is set to register another year of solid economic performance, expanding at 4½ percent in 2015. This said, the expansion will be at the lower end of the range registered in recent years, mainly reflecting the adverse impact of the sharp decline in oil and other commodity prices.
The effect of this shock will be quite heterogeneous across the region. The region’s eight oil exporters will be hit hard and, with limited buffers, are expected to effect significant fiscal adjustment, with adverse implications for growth. For much of the rest of the region, near-term prospects remain quite favorable, with many countries benefiting from lower oil prices—although, for a number of them, this positive effect will be part offset by the decline in the prices of other exported commodities. Notable exceptions are South Africa, where growth is expected to remain lackluster, held back by continuing problems in the electricity sector, and Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, where the Ebola outbreak continues to exact a heavy economic and social toll.

The simplistic US-China focused narrative of the future of the Asia-Pacific does not sufficiently take into consideration other regional actors such as Japan and India, new instruments of leverage in the region, or the extent and complexity of changing relationships.

In making the situation appear simpler than reality, Asia-Pacific countries and the United States risk narrowing the aperture through which they evaluate policy choices regarding major regional challenges. At the same time, the bipolar perspective, potentially invoking Cold War-type mentalities, could exacerbate tensions rather than relieve them. Seeing US–Chinese competition as the main variable in the region could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This paper seeks to go beyond this perception by laying out the major narratives of the region’s power distribution currently in play in its four principal powers – the United States, China, India and Japan. Building on a review of the main instruments of power and the current regional trends, this paper argues that the Asia-Pacific region in 2030 will have at least four principal characteristics:
- The pace of change will increase, along with its volatility. This will result in the power distribution between the principal actors becoming more complex, finely balanced and difficult to assess clearly. The emergence of new, often disruptive, technologies, particularly in media and communications, will make control of information increasingly difficult.
- Power will become more diverse and diffuse, with more state and non-state actors having influential roles. Power is also becoming more diffuse within states, making it harder for governments to manage internal debates and to send clear messages to neighbours, particularly where nationalism is growing.
- The region will become more complex, unpredictable and thus hard to govern as a result of the rise of new actors, challenges and tools. This could lead to policy paralysis on the part of leading state actors as a swiftly changing environment and too many choices lead to greater uncertainty and, in the end, hesitancy or no action being taken.
- The region will become more interdependent, which makes the previous point troubling. Already, all states in the Asia-Pacific are increasingly dependent on one another for growth, stability and security.

The futures (in the plural) that we focus on uncovering are the ones that people are not thinking enough about. Our role is not to predict, but to signal to decision-makers new opportunities and new risks that they might not otherwise be alert to.