10 challenges facing the Middle East region in 2022
The Middle East faces several major challenges in 2022, such as the fight against climate change and energy transition, as well as unfinished business such as democratisation and human rights, which remain unrespected in most Arab countries, where there has been limited progress since the 2011 uprisings, while economic indicators have not improved.
Fighting climate change
While the Middle East is a region particularly affected by climate change, due to the increasing desertification of its already arid countries, tackling climate change has not been a priority for Arab governments until recently.
Next year, environmental policies will take centre stage with COP27 in Egypt and preparations for COP28 in the UAE in 2023, where the hosts and their neighbours will have to deal with the necessary transition from fossil fuels to clean energy at home.
This transition will be particularly difficult for the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf whose economies are heavily dependent on oil sales, with countries such as Saudi Arabia embarking on an ambitious plan to diversify their revenues by 2030.
Falling indicators
In 2022, the Middle East will have to deal with indicators of poverty and hunger that have worsened since 2020 due to the impact of the covid-19 crisis and that, in some cases, have been declining over the last decade since the popular uprisings of 2011 that, precisely, demanded decent living conditions and a better future.
According to the latest report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 69 million people in the Arab world suffered from hunger in 2020, representing 15.8 % of the population, while 32.3 % have not had regular access to sufficient and nutritious food in the past year.
The pandemic has also increased inequalities and may cause a major setback in poverty rates in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a December report by the World Bank, which warns that the consequences may be felt in the long term.
The difficult post-pandemic recovery
The economic crisis generated by the impact of the pandemic is the fourth to hit the region since 2011 - after the Arab revolts, the 2016 oil price slump and the second wave of protests in 2019 - so socio-economic conditions were already very fragile when the coronavirus hit.
The World Bank estimates that GDP has fallen by more than 5 per cent in 2020 and does not foresee a recovery until 2024 or 2025, while it estimates that the pandemic has cost some $227 billion in 2021, with fiscal support measures averaging 2.7 per cent of GDP in MENA countries.
The Lebanese economic crisis
Lebanon is the country with the most dramatic economic situation, due to the crisis that erupted at the end of 2019 with the mass protests that shook the country, which were compounded in 2020 by the pandemic and the explosion of the Beirut port, which devastated entire neighbourhoods of the capital.
Lebanon is currently experiencing what the World Bank has described as one of the worst global economic crises in the last century and a half, with soaring inflation, a plummeting currency and severe shortages of basic goods and services.
The government of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, formed in extremis last September, will have to find solutions to the most pressing problems of the Lebanese, 80 percent of whom are poor, and continue to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund to save the country from financial collapse.
The transition in Sudan
The democratic transition that began after the overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019 was abruptly interrupted on 25 October 2021 by a military coup, which deposed Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok, who had led the civilian government that shared power with Sudan's military.
The generals, led by Abdelfatah al-Burhan, reappointed him in late November after reaching a new agreement to govern together, although most political forces and civilian groups have stayed out of the process and reject the pact as "treason".
The transition will depend on the balance Hamdok can strike in 2022 between the military and civilians, and the extent to which the uniformed are willing to cede command and allow the development of the freedoms and rights that the Sudanese have been demanding on the streets since December 2018.
Syria's return to the Arab League
Syria was expelled from the Arab League after the outbreak of protests in 2011 and their violent repression, which led to the regional and international isolation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is still under Western sanctions along with his closest entourage.
However, several Arab countries have been moving closer to Damascus since 2020, and 2022 could be the year of Syria's return to the body that brings together 22 Arab countries and where internal conflicts and tensions between neighbours, friends and enemies are settled.
Al-Assad spoke by phone with Jordan's King Abdullah II last October for the first time in a decade, and a few days later he spoke with Abu Dhabi's crown prince and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The World Cup in Qatar
The World Cup is scheduled to take place in Qatar in November 2022, the first Arab country to host the world's premier international football tournament, and it will be held in winter because temperatures in the Persian Gulf can exceed 50 degrees in the summer months.
Beyond the difficulties posed by the climate, the event has been surrounded by controversy from the outset due to allegations of abuse of migrant workers on World Cup construction sites by human rights organisations.
As for preparations, a year ahead of the World Cup, its director general, Nasser al Khater, told EFE in Doha last November that the organisers "would be ready" for the big event.
Women's football in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's first professional women's football league kicked off last November, heralded by the ultra-conservative kingdom's authorities as a sign of openness and progress on women's rights, but the competition has taken place with a limited public presence, no TV cameras and no journalists.
Saudi Arabia has also signed its first women's football coach, Germany's Monika Staab, with the intention of building a national team to represent the nation in international competitions, although both the team and women's football still have a long way to go in a country where women were banned from stadiums until 2018.
Human rights and sport in the Gulf
Both the Qatar 2022 World Cup and other major sporting events that the countries of the Persian Gulf are competing to host, from F1 races to rallies and marathons, highlight the human rights situation in this area, where the oil monarchies have opened up to the outside world, but still do not grant full freedoms to their citizens.
Saudi Arabia, which will host its first full marathon in Riyadh in 2022, is the prime example of the freedom that applies to international sporting and entertainment events, while still repressing its citizens and imprisoning voices critical of the royal family.
Some international stars have refused to perform in Saudi Arabia, while sportsmen and women have so far attended without problems amid calls for a boycott of Saudi, Emirati and other regimes' invitations, accused of seeking to whitewash their image with such major events.
Freedom of expression and the press
Freedom of expression, both for professionals and ordinary citizens, remains one of the main challenges in the Middle East, where journalists, bloggers, activists and users who simply express their opinions on social media are imprisoned in several countries in the region.
Egypt is one of the main examples, which, under President Abdelfatah al Sisi, again ranked in 2021 as the country with the third highest number of journalists behind bars in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Local and international human rights organisations also report that tens of thousands of people are imprisoned in Egyptian jails for expressing their opinions or criticising the al-Sisi government, and demanding the basic rights that Egyptians demanded in Tahrir Square almost eleven years ago.