"Women, Life, Freedom": Could a hijab dispute topple the Islamic Republic of Iran?

Mahsa Amini

Mahsa Amini was an Iranian Kurdish woman who was visiting Tehran with her brother for the first time.  Either she wasn't wearing a hijab in Tehran or her hijab revealed some of her hair.  Whatever the case, Amini was stopped by Iran's hated "morality police" and arrested for  transgressing Iran's female dress code.  On the way to prison, she was tortured.  Three days later she was dead.  Apparently beaten around the head by the police, she died while in custody or at the hospital to which she was later taken.

Amini's death has caused outrage throughout Iran.  Quickly, demonstration began in Saqqez, Amini's home town in Iran's northwest region. The region is home to Iran's Kurds who number 10 million and constitute 10% of the population.  However, protests then spread to all Iran's cities and all Iran's 31 provinces.  While women were among the first protestors, men from all age groups began to join them Iran Protests Feature Smaller Gatherings, Rooftop Chanting as Crackdown Intensifies

The ongoing protests in Iran are notable for several region. First, the Kurds have been neglected by the central government for decades and Kurds have been viewed as second-class citizens.  Little investment has been directed towards the northwest where roads are in poor condition and schools and hospitals receive little aid.  That the death of a Kurdish citizen has stirred demonstrations through Iran indicates that eth nic lines have been crossed with Amini;s death.

Second, the demonstrations reflects generational anger.  Young people have no personal ties to the revolution of 1978-1979.  Those who did participate are now in their 70s.  Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is 83 and has been ruling Iran since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989. Among the 80% of Iran's population under the age of 40, there is little hope in the future. This demographic doesn't identity with sclerotic clerical leadership in Tehran.  

Third, the rejection of the current regime is especially acute among women.  Khamenei and his repressive elite have done all they can to prevent women from entering the public sphere. Despite these impediments, many women in Iran are highly educated and have university degrees.  As amy have pointed out, the protests against the regime for Mahsa Amini's death are in fact an uprising led by Iranian women.  

Thus, the protests are in effect a women's revolution.  Women have not been attributed much agency among analysts of Middle East politics.  That they would assume such a central role in what seems to be one of the greatest challenges faced by the Tehran regime since it consolidate power after 1979 behooves us all to take women more seriously as agents of change.

Some of the most effective aspects of women's protests have been the creation of bonfires in which women throw their hijabs, expressing their rejection of not only the regime oppressive dress code and enforcers, the "morality police," but a repression of the core patriarchal nature of Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militia. 

The rejection of patriarchy is also evident in the many women who have cut their hair and called on their sisters in other countries to do the same. Through this tactic, Iranian women have internationalized the protests.  The more women in countries around the world who cut their hair, the greater the degree to which the Iranian women's uprising calls attention to the oppression they face.

The recently elected president, Ebrahim Raisi, is a hardliner who has littl or no understanding of the generational divide which Iran is facing.  Rather than use Iran's oil wealth to invest in education, health care, job training, Raisi and his clique which controls the IRGC persist in their efforts to prop up the spent al-Asad regime in Syria and support. the Hizballah militia in Lebanon and its counterpart in Iraq, the Popular Mobilization (al-Hashad al-Sha'bi).

Regime resources continue to be devoted to its nuclear energy program, which could ultimately allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and to establishing a ballistic missile force which could deliver such weapons.  Raisi seems not to realize that the younger generation rejects his repressive policies at home and the regime's reckless foreign policy.

At the same time, Raisi seeks to force women to forgo wearing brightly colored hijabs and clothing. This attempt to force Iran to return to the even more repressive years of Ayatollah Khomeini reminds Iranians that Raisi gained his reputation as the hanging judge when he presided over sham trials in which thousands of dissidents were sent to the gallows. A Brief History of the 'Butcher of Tehran'.

State security forces can only kill so many demonstrators. And we should remember what happened when the Shah ordered his forces to shoot demonstrators. Once the Shah reduced spending on urban construction to reduce inflation, unemployment rose as the economy weakened. Many workers began demonstrations which their sympathizers in the security forces refused to suppress. Instead of shooting the protestors, they laid down their guns and refused orders to kill the protestors.

Is Iran at such a moment now? Will women be shot and killed for removing their hijabs and cutting their hair?  Such repression will further undermine sympathy for the regime which is already facing the imminent demise of the aging and ill Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and the succession struggle which will follow.

The hijab and Iran's dress code for women has attained the status of a symbol of oppression.  The current demonstrations by young Iranian women and their millions of supporters from all sectors of society show that the genie is out of the bottle.  They may bring down the regime but Raisi and his clerical elite will have a hard time forcing it back in the bottle.  A lengthy period of instability is in the offing in Iran 

Does the United States Really Misunderstand Iran آیا آمریکا واقعا ایران را اشتباه می‌فهمد؟

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi

A recent Opinion article in the New York Times, "How the United States Misunderstand Iran," argues that the United States fails to comprehend the current political dynamics in the so-called Islamic Republic.  Reading this piece by Karim Sadjadpour, it is not clear exactly what the author is trying to argue.  Because the author's argument about comprehending your adversary is absolutely correct, what is the nature of current US-Iranian relations? How the United States Misunderstands Iran

In this article, the reader never learns exactly what it is that the United States government fails to understand about Iran.  The article largely focuses on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  However, surely the United States, or any power for that matter, needs to examine the Iranian regime beyond it main leader. For example, the recently elected president and hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi, is never mentioned, even though he wields considerable power.

In an article which alleges that the US misunderstands Iran, one assumes that the author would offer new American policy options commensurate with the analysis he suggests.  Yet little is offered beyond the argument that sanctions, the main tool the US has used against Iran, have only a spotty record of success internationally.

Apart from Dr. Sadjadpour's excellent analysis of the manner in which Khamenei uses  anti-Americanism to sustain his rule, we never learn why hardliners have recently come to dominate the regime, especially after a period of two decades in the 1990s and after when at least some moderate leaders occupied the office of the presidency, namely Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani.  

Does the rise of the hardliners reflect an actual weakening of the regime? While sanctions won't bring down the regime, they have clearly taken a toll on Iran's economy and promoted popular discontent with the regime.  This is especially true because the populace is aware of the extensive corruption which pervades the regime and its praetorian guard, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

It is striking that, for Dr. Sadjadpour, history begins in 1979 with the victory of Iran's revolution which toppled the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. However, the largest American blunder, and example of US misunderstanding of Iran par excellence, was the CIA's overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, in 1953.

Mossadegh was guilty of the sin of wanting to help the citizens he represented enjoy a higher standard of living.  To do this, he demanded the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company pay higher royalties per barrel beyond the pittance Iran received for the oil extracted from its wells. In the political instability which followed, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled the country. 

For its part, Great Britain organized an international boycott of Iranian oil. Ultimately the CIA, and its agent, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., mobilized Iran's army and religious clergy to support a coup d'etat which reinstated the young Shah to the Peacock Throne.  After regaining power, the Shah enacted brutally repressive policies which marginalized much of Iran's population apart from a small, wealthy Westernized elite. 

One possibility for the US to open a powerful initiative would be to admit the mistake that it made in 1953 in overthrowing Mossadegh and restoring the Shah to power.  In conjunction with this declaration, the US could call on Iran to release its large number of political prisoners, including the many dual nationals in its prisons. 

There would be no expectation that Tehran would agree to release political prisoners. Nevertheless, an apology for the events of the early 1950s when the US interfered in Iran's internal affairs would undercut the anti-American rhetoric which Dr. Sadjadpour shows is so central to the regime's legitimacy.  

Another initiative which the author mentions but doesn't elaborate on is the possibility of the US developing economic ties with Iran.  While excellent in the abstract, this policy would have no traction among Democrats and Republicans in the US unless Iran changes its behavior in at least two respects.  First, it would need to commit to ending its uranium enriching program to assure that it does not acquire nuclear weapons, and, second, it would need to rein in its regional interference in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Conspicuously absent from Dr. Sadjadpour's analysis is the current negotiations of the US and the European Union with Iran to reinstate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) . After Donald Trump unilaterally abrogated the agreement in 2018, Iran increased its uranium enrichment program and has continued to develop ballistic missiles.  

The prospects for the current JCPOA negotiations to be successful are dim at best.  Iran has engaged in significant behavior beyond its borders intended to intimidate expatriate dissidents or even assassinate them.  Its gloating over the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, and blaming the author and his supporters for the attack, was both despicable and certainly will not improve its standing in the international community. Will Anyone Punish Iran for Its Murderous Behavior?

The proof of the pudding is the eating.  Iran's behavior points to an increasingly rogue state.  The question at the end of the day is not, "Does the United States Misunderstand Iran," but rather, "Does Iran Misunderstand What It Means to Be a Responsible Member of the Global Order?" As long as Iran refuses to change its behavior, the US and the West should continue their policy of isolating it.

 

 

أزمة المياه في العراق: هل يمكن لسد بخمة المساعدة فيحلها؟ Iraq’s Water Crisis: Could the Bakhma Dam Help Solve It

The New Middle East is pleased to welcome Jabbar Jaafar, a strategic communications specialist, as co-author of this post , especially because he suggested the topic of the Bakhma Dam analyzed below

The Initial Construction on the Bakhma Dam

As authoritarian rulers in the Middle East continue to repress dissent and corrupt elites steal from the public purse, little is being done to address the region’s climate crisis. With widespread drought, extreme heat, desertification, and dust storms afflicting the region, the ability to access water resources looms ever larger. Iraq is one of the MENA region countries facing the most severe water resources problem. What can be done to mitigate this problem? 

Historically, Iraq has been blessed with waters from its two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which gave it its ancient name, Mesopotamia – the land between the two rivers – as well as its appellation as the Fertile Crescent. Today, Iraq derives 98% of its water from the Tigris and Euphrates, and their tributaries.  However, their ability to supply Iraq with its necessary water is severely threatened. 

Iraq has suffered a severe drought since 2007.  

Water shortages have been exacerbated by Turkey’s building dams on the Upper Euphrates River and Iran building dams on the Zab and other rivers which feed into the Tigris.  Already tribes in southern Iraq have engaged in conflict over access to water and Iraq’s southern provinces have accused the northern provinces of taking more water from the Tigris and Euphrates beyond what they are officially allocated.  

Clearly, water shortages suggest a rise in domestic and international conflict if not seriously confronted.  Even more ominous, the lack of water may make certain areas of Iraq uninhabitable in the future.  With a 34 mile coastline, Iraq cannot hope to receive its water supply by desalination, using the Persian (arab) Gulf.

However, one area of possible water resources has yet to receive adequate attention. Iraq’s three northern provinces in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) have ample sources of water.  Although the KRG has also been adversely affected by drought conditions, e.g., a substantial number of its 10,000 wells have run dry over the past decade, it is blessed with considerable water.  The high mountains in the KRG produce significant water runoff each spring. This runoff has yet to be captured and used in a more efficient manner. 

To more efficiently use the water resources in Iraq's Kurdish region, this post discusses the Bakhma (Behme) Dam project near Erbil in the Duhok region.  While the dam is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever conceived for Iraq, it has yet to be completed. Were the dam constructed, it could provide a substantial amount of water,and hydropower, which could help address Iraq’s water and electricity shortage needs.

 

Iraq’s current rulers, both Arab and Kurdish, they have shown little interest in improving the lives of the Iraqi people. Their behavior has been characterized by extensive corruption and does not indicate a concern to develop Iraq and bring prosperity to their constituents.  An examination of their achievements over the last 20 years shows no tangible results in contributing to infrastructure development.  For example, Iraq's southern city of Basra still lacks adequate electricity and potable water.  Unfortunately, Iraq’s development has been lacking in all areas, including the water sector, which has been deliberately neglected with no dams or other water reservoirs having been built. 

 

Historical perspective 

In many respects, Iraq’s ancient rulers were more forward looking than the current political elite in maintaining the country’s water supply. During Emperor Hammurabi’s reign, Babylonia, witnessed his care in maintaining and expanding irrigation networks by constructing new canals and dams.  By 1760 BCE, when Hammurabi established control over all of Mesopotamia, and especially the city-states of Sumeria, he restored the irrigation canals there to their best condition and brought water back to areas of the south which had previously deprived of it.

 

Hammurabi’s unification of the entire south and the lands north of Babylon allowed him to construct lengthy canals to the various cities of the empire. These canal, which he named, "Hammurabi-is-the-abundance-of-the-people," ran to Nippur, Isin, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, and Eridu, and covered a stretch of land covering 160 kilometers. These irrigation works brought economic development and increased the wealth of the population to unprecedented levels. 

The idea of the Bakhma Dam 

Iraq’s Hashimite monarchy has often been vilified, given its repression of Iraq’s nationalist movement from 1921 until its overthrow in 1958 and lack of addressing the needs of the poor.  In the area of water resources, however, the monarchy implemented a number of projects, the most important of which was the Wadi Thathar Flood Control Project between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north of Baghdad. The project, which began in 1952, and was completed in 1956, was designed to divert waters from the spring floods into Lake Tharthar to prevent flooding in Baghdad and other Iraqi towns and villages and to increase water for irrigation. 

The Wadi Tharthar Flood Prevention Project

The idea of the Bakhma Dam in Dohuk Governorate dates back 90 years when an American journalist published an article in the al-Awqat al-Baghdadia newspaper (August 18, 1932) suggesting using Iraq’s rivers to generate electric power and equip industrial plants.  The article proposed and the constructing an 800-foot-high dam whose turbines would be able to generate 1500 kilowatts of electricity.  

In 1937, a British advisory council conducted the first geological study of the project area in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Experts issued a report on its explorations and recommended the construction of a high dam at a site near the village of Bakhma at the entrance to the Klei Bekhmael Gorge.  In 1939, British geologists indicated the most suitable site of a dam would be at the entrance to the gorge, the product of the Zab River, the largest river within Iraqi Kurdistan, with a watershed extending well into southern Turkey and with many smaller tributaries, such as the Rawanduz River.  Finally, in 1941, a report developed by a British irrigation engineer proposed constructing a dam at the height of 470 meters high, with capacity storage of about 1.25 billion cubic meters of water. 

After World War 2, the Hashimite monarchy formed by the Supreme Council for the Study of Water Resources and Development in Iraq to conduct geological surveys and produce academic studies between 1946 and 1949. The goal was to obtain greater technical information about the Bakhma Dam site and its facilities.  The dam’s key objective was to control the waters of the Upper Zab River and reduce the floods threatening Baghdad.  In 1950, the Supreme Council approved a study for constructing a high dam in the Bekhmal Gorge for flood control and using the dam as a strategic reservoir for irrigation and farming in fertile areas below the dam. 

 

The Bakhma Dam project is still considered one of the vast and promising infrastructure projects designed to address Iraq's water shortage. The dam is located near the district of Aqrah in the Behdinan region of the KRG and 45 miles from its capital, Erbil. It is considered the most expensive of Iraq's dams, and it faces many technical obstacles. Cost estimates indicate that it would require $7 billion to complete.  In light of Iraq’s current revenues from oil sales, this amount does not seem prohibitive, especially if foreign funding, e.g., from the United State and EU, could cover part of the dam’s construction costs. 

Bakhma Dam water diversion tunnel

As international political and economic influence shifted away from Great Britain after WWII, the United States assumed a central role in Iraq’s development project.  In the early 1950s, the Reconstruction Council referred the dam design to the Harza Engineering Company in Chicago, which conducted a study and issued its planning report in December 1952.  

The Bakhma Dam’s cost was calculated according to the amount of water being stored which is measured in billions of cubic meters. The Harza Company report, which indicated that the higher the dam, the lower the cost per billion cubic meters of storage, recommended that the most economical cost for the construction of the dam would be a height of 550 meters.  

 

The company’s report estimated that the Bakhma Dam’s reservoir could hold 8.6 billion cubic meters of water which could irrigate 2 million plots of agricultural land.  Further it would increase the water supply of the Tigris River, reduce flooding in Baghdad, and generate 2-3 billion kilowatt-hours of electrical energy.  

In 1975, given the high oil prices at the time, the Iraqi Ministry of Irrigation asked Harza to re-evaluate its proposal for the Bakhma Dam project. The company was asked to present several alternatives so the Ministry could choose the optimal proposal, according to Iraq's need for water for irrigation, agriculture, and electricity generation at the lowest cost. The company submitted its report in 1976, which offered indicated three alternative placements for the dam, with the confluence of the Rawanduz River with the Greater Zab tributary at the entrance to the gorge being chosen as the most suitable site. 

In 1978, the Ministry of Irrigation requested seven foreign consulting companies from Japan, France, the United States, and communist bloc countries to submit offers and conduct detailed geological and hydrological examinations, preparing final designs and directing the implementation work of the dam. Studies to build the dam began in March 1979. 

 

Bakhma Dam Description 

 

In 1987, the first phase of the Bakhma Dam’s construction was begun.  The dam’s height was to be 750 ft, its length 2000 ft, and it was to have a storage capacity of 17 cubic kilometers and surface area of 100 kilometers (39 square miles)—with a total estimated cost was about $1.5 billion. 

The Bakhma Dam Project and its Reservoir

The objective in building the dam was to store water, irrigate the Erbil plains, produce hydroelectric power, and reduce floods that threaten Iraqi cities. Experts estimated that if the dam was built, it would be able to store 14,4 billion cubic meters of water.  Thus, it would be the largest Iraqi dam in the volume of water reserves.  

The contract to build the dam was awarded to a consortium of Turkish-Yugoslavian firms, ENKA Hidrogradnja and Energoprojekt.  A colossal tunnel was built to drain the excess water. The diversion tunnel the size of car tunnels was dug into the mountain by the Turkish company ENKA, a company specializing in the field of engineering and power plants, which removed thousands of tons of rock. The Yugoslavian company, Hydrocravenia, helped build the chambers for the underground powerhouse and transformers. 

 

Work suspension 

 

Between 1987 and 1991, the two companies completed about 35% of the dam.  Construction was halted with the outbreak of the second Gulf War in 1990 after the Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The war was followed by the popular March 1991 uprising (Intifadat Sha'ban). As a result of this uprising, most Kurdistan region broke away from control of the central government. The equipment and machinery of the two companies were looted, so the Iraqi government was forced to compensate for the losses of the Turkish and Yugoslav companies at a cost of $175 million dollars. 

The Bekhmel Gorge

After Saddam's regime fell in 2003, efforts were made to complete the dam's construction. In 2005, several Iraqi technical and foreign advisory committees were organized to review the project.  By this time, the dam's cost had risen to $3 billion dollars based on subsequent studies and designs. In 2007, the estimated amount rose to $5 billion dollars. Nevertheless, the Council of Ministers headed by Nuri al-Maliki agreed to allocate this amount and the Kurdish Regional Government expressed interest in the project.  

 However, the Bakhma Dam project did encounter some opposition. A Kurdish leader objected to the establishment of the dam because his clan resides in the region of Aqrah, east of the Great Zab River. Several villages, his tribe complained, would be flooded with the waters of the dam's lake, erasing the history and traces of those villages and the graves of the former prominent sheiks. 

 

On November 17, 2019, Mr. Kifah Mahmoud, an adviser to the Kurdish Democratic Party, claimed that "Bakhma dam was designed to separate (the) Soran (area) from Badinan (Bahdinan), in a malicious attempt to divide the partition by natural means.”  However, new construction designs were formulated so that the reservoir would not constitute a water barrier between different regions in Kurdistan. 

The Politics of the Bakhma Dam 

The Bekhmel Gorge area inundated by Bakhma Dam

The Bakhma Dam wasn’t completed after the toppling of Saddam due to a number of objections.  In 2007, the Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Malik, agreed to fund the dam whose cost had now reached $7 billion.  However, in 2008, the Federal Government decided not to pursue the dam project due to the drought affecting the country and fears it will reduce water supplies to the south of Iraq. Thus, once again, the Bakhma Dam project was put on hold. 

 Could the current water crisis change the calculus of the Baghdad and Erbil political elites and permit the dam project to finally move forward?  First, the KRG leadership is well aware is that the water crisis in the south can only produce political instability. In neighboring Syria, the severe drought along the Euphrates led to the Arab Spring uprisings there and subsequently helped the Islamic State recruit local farmers and youth. A destabilized Arab Iraq would present a major challenge to the landlocked KRG. 

 

Second, the rise in oil prices makes it easier for the Federal Government in Baghdad to make concessions on the division of Iraq’s oil wealth.  While the sharing of oil wealth with the KRG needs to be shielded from corruption (and in the south as well), e.g., designated for specific uses such as KRG government salaries, pensions, and infrastructure projects, greater flexibility on sharing Iraq’s oil wealth could incentivize the Kurdish political elite to allow the Bakhma Dam project to move forward. 

Third, Iraq could use the ties it has recently developed with Saudi Arabia to raise funds from the kingdom and the GCC to invest in the KRG’s agrarian sector.  Much of the Kurdish region's agriculture was destroyed during Saddam’s Husayn’s brutal ANFAL Campaign of the later 1980s when over 150 Kurdish villages were razed to the ground.  Currently, with many KRG government employees returning to the agricultural sector as a result of sporadic salary payments, now would be the time to revive Kurdish agriculture. This could help assure the KRG and Iraq’s food security and lessen Iraq’s dependence on food imports.   

 

To assure that the Bakhma Dam project was resumed, it would be important for the United Nations and the European Union to serve as mediators between Baghdad and Erbil. These parties would be viewed as neutral arbiters who could hopefully encourage the two political elites to come together on promoting the dam which would serve both Kurds and Arabs. 

 

If neutral mediators could bring the Federal Government and KRG to develop a comprehensive national water policy, it might encourage Iraq to try and establish a regional water authority including Iraq, Iran and Syria.  The problem of access to water is only going to become worse as global warming increases.  A water authority encompassing Iraq, Turkey and Iran could provide a model for the entire MENA region. 

Finally, accommodation should be made for the estimated 20-40,000 Kurds whose villages would be destroyed by the Bakhma Dam’s construction and the heritage which would be lost to the dam’s large reservoir.  Drawing up efforts in Egypt to save precious heritage during the building of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, similar measures should be taken to assure that as much heritage as possible is saved for posterity. 

 

The Youth Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Project - Phase 2

An overview of current conditions in the world can produce many negative feelings.  The continued Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s brutal attack of Ukraine, food insecurity resulting from the halt in wheat and other critical agricultural products from Ukraine and Russia as a result of the war, the spread of autocratic regimes, global inflation resulting from the pandemic and Ukraine war and, of course, the existential threat posed by climate change and global warming, offer few areas of hope for the near future.  

There is one bright spot which is the possibly of youth globally – the “generation in waiting” – to adopt new approaches to global problems which differ from the destructive policies of their elders.  What can youth offer to provide a new spirit of hope in the future. 

 

In past posts, I have spoken about the power and promise of youth social entrepreneurship. Based on the belief that youth today constitute the only demographic which bring about meaningful social change, I worked with several colleagues to create the Youth, Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Project (YSESD). 

 

Now in its fourth year, the YSESD completed its first phase in December 2021. Supported by a grant from the Hollings Center for International Dialogue in Istanbul, the YSESD brought together a group of youth social entrepreneurs from Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan.  Phase 1 of the YSESD focused on mentoring.  It created cross-national teams of project participants who developed projects which could be implemented in the future. 

 

The response of these teams, which grouped youth social entrepreneurs from Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan, was extremely positive. The participants benefited from the ideas which came from different cultural contexts and reported that the synergy that developed during the project building was something they not experienced heretofore.  The YSESD’s progress in Phase 1 underscored the goal of building an international network of youth social entrepreneurs.  

 

Beginning with our 3 “pilot” countries in Phase 1, youth social could share information on the project’s platform with other YSESD participants beyond their teams, and obtain mentorship in YSESD workshops from successful social entrepreneurs in the MENA region, Pakistan Europe and the United States.

 

This spring, the YSESD began Phase 2 of the project.  Once again, the project is fortunate to have outstanding participants. This cohort not only includes youth social entrepreneurs from Turley, Iraq, and Pakistan, but also from Syria, Kuwait, Dubai, Palestine, and MENA region youth living in Europe.  Thus, the YSESD is widening its focus in the MENA region and in Pakistan.

 Mentoring is a core component of Phase 2, which is providing instruction using lectures and instructional materials from the YCombinator Start-Up School.  During bi-weekly meetings, YSESD participants join breakout rooms where they receive suggestions and comments on their social entrepreneurial ventures.  As in Phase 1, an effort is made to link youth social entrepreneurs from different countries. 

 

For example, during our last meeting this month, I worked with 2 youth social entrepreneurs from Turkey and another from Iraq.  The Turkish partners have developed a computer training venture which provides refugees and other educationally deprived youth in Turkey with computer skills training. The Iraqi youth social entrepreneur, and his partners in Iraq, have developed 7 schools in Iraq which offer primary and secondary school education.  Two of the schools serve youth in the poorest districts of Baghdad while the other 3 serve displaced youth in Iraq’s al-Anbar Province west of the Iraqi capital. 

 

The outcome of our mentoring session was the suggestion that the Turkish social entrepreneurs provide computer skills training to trainers in Iraq where schools provide limited education in this critical area.  The Iraqi social entrepreneur, and his partners, would reach out to an Italian NGO and USAID in Iraq to fund the project.  Thus, this initiative would link Turkish and Iraqi youth social entrepreneurs in a cross-national project from which both sides would benefit. 

At the same time, the YSESD, under the leadership of Mr. Berat Kjamili, CEO of migport.com, a company which specializes in providing career opportunities for refugees who have come to Turkey, is developing the YSESD platform for all project participants to use both to improve their ongoing social entrepreneurial ventures, to share ideas with their colleagues, and to meet with potential investors. 

YSESD and the MENA region and Pakistan

Turning to the MENA region and Pakistan, from which our YSESD participants are drawn, it is obvious that the countries in the MENA region and South Asia face myriad problems. One of the most dangerous is global warming caused by climate change which poses an existential threat.  Little, if nothing, is being done by states in the MENA region or in Pakistan to combat what should accurately be called the Climate Emergency.

Water shortages threaten many countries as drought spreads, rivers dry up and states fight over a critical resource. It was a key causal factor in the Syrian Arab Spring uprising when residents of 175 villages along the Euphrates River were forced to leave them and migrate westward as the reduced river flow would no longer support local agriculture.  Failing to receive state support, these migrants began demonstrating peacefully which led to a violent response by the al-Asad regime leading to onset of Syria's civil war which is still ongoing.

Like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Jordan are facing serious water problems as are other countries in the MENA region. Pakistan is the third most water stressed country in the world with only a 10% capacity for rainfall storage. Further, Pakistan and many MENA region countries are unable to provide large segments of their population with clean, potable water.

Rising sea levels rw causing saline water from the Mediterranean to enter the two tributaries of Egypt's Nile River.  The Shatt al-Arab where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join is also experiencing invasive saline water from the Persian Gulf. In both Egypt and Iraq, this phenomenon has hurt local agricultural production. 

Excessive heat exacerbates the water shortage problem by preventing crops from growing and being harvested. It is also contributing to desertification in the MENA region and Pakistan. Thus, the Climate Emergency contributes to food insecurity.  It also adversely affects the health of local populations because dust storms are becoming more frequent causing an increase in pulmonary diseases.

Hot temperatures and limited rainfall has also contributed to the spread of wildfires.  Large areas of Turkey along the Mediterranean suffered from extensive wildfire during the summer of 2021. Both Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and areas around Jerusalem in Israel also suffered extensive wildfires in 2021. This problem will only worsen in the bear future displacing people from their homes and forcing states to divert funds to tackle this problem.

Civil strife and the Climate Emergency have created a large refugee population in the MENA region and Pakistan.  Refugees have myriad needs which often aren't or can't be et by the host country.  Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, for example, have millions of Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war which has displaced half of the country's population.

How can youth social entrepreneurs help  address these problems? Many of the YSESD participants have already initiated excellent projects to help residents and displaced people adapt to the disruption which has affected their lives. These projects have offered training in many skills, including learning the local language and computer usage.  

Other projects engage in recycling waste.  These projects offer small amounts of money to local residents who bring their waste to recycling centers but help prevent the spread of disease.  They promote a community spirit where residents realize that their community can better handle waste products and receive compensation for better practices as well. One project in Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government provides employment for over 600 people who work in the recycling sector.

Another project has developed 7 schools in Iraq for poor and displaced Iraqis.  These schools have been able to educate both female as well as male children.  The schools charge a minimal fee or no fee at all if funds aren;t available.  In Baghdad poor districts, some parents who are illiterate have enrolled in the schools together with their children.

Proposed social entrepreneurial projects 

The following list constitutes the "tip of the iceberg," naely a small menu of the tremendous prospects for social entrepreneurial venues in the Global South, such as the MENA region, and Pakistan 

Land reclamation - One of the simplest applications of social entrepreneurship which is needed in the MENA region and Pakistan is combating climate change.  As drought and rising temperatures ravage the MENA region and parts of South Asia, desertification has spread. Establishing myriad social entrepreneurial firms, funded by the state, vegetation could be planted throughout areas which have turned to desert or were in the process of doing so.

Agricultural mentoring - climate change is fostering food insecurity in the MENA region and south Asia. With support of Ministry of Agriculture, youth entrepreneurial ventures could be developed to help farmers better use their limited water resources.

Recycling companies - food, cardboard, plastic, glass and metal waste are all recyclable.  They create problems with landfills, especially in dense urban areas.  Food waste can cause disease.  Thus, recycling is environmentally beneficial.  It can also generate financial resources for the social entrepreneurs. 

But perhaps the greatest inventive is the small amount of money local residents can obtain from  bringing their waste to local recycling centers.  Finally, food waste can be transformed into organic fertilizer which can be used in local gardens.

Local health care clinics - Working with local hospitals, physicians associations, faculties of health at regional and national universities, and with the national ministry of health, youth social entrepreneurs can organize to provide basic healthcare information and services to poor urban neighborhoods and rural areas which lack health care facilities.  

This process occurred on a temporary basis when youth leading the October Revolution in Iraq.  Offering basics such as soap and vaccinations, such clinics can both help poor, underserved populations to acquire basic healthcare while also serving as an informational conduit  to governmental agencies to use in improving healthcare services to the poor. 

Solar energy - electricity is a commodity which is in short supply in many countries of the Global South.  With rising temperatures, electricity is also essential to protect vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, the ill and children, though allowing them access to air conditioning.  Electricity is critical for preserving food and having access to information via the Internet.

In Egypt, a group of youth established a solar energy company, Karam Solar, despite initial oppositiøon fo the Egyptian government.  To date, it has provided solar panles to large areas of Egypt.  Its providing farmers with solar panels helped them obtain water from deeper in the ground, cut their irrigation costs by cutting down or even elimination the need for diesel fuel altogether (which sometime was not delivered to them in a timely manner), and improve their harvests.

The Karm Solar team - Sharikat Karm li-l-Taqa al-Shamsiya

Most MENA region countries and Pakistan lack adequate electricity.  As Iraq and other countries lacking electricity move to devel large solar farms, the time is ripe for providing solar panels to poorer communities and large numbers of farmers .  Youth social entrepreneurs can use the Karm Solar model to apply to their own national contexts.

Karam Solar, Cairo, Egypt

For those interested in more information on the Youth Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Project, or would like to join our youth social entrepreneurs as a Phase 2 participant, mentor, or potential investor, please contact me at: davis@polisci.rutgers.edu, or Mr. Berat Kjamili, CEO, migport.com at: beratmigport@gmail.com