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21. Aftermath of Al-Fashir’s Fall to Rapid Support Forces

Author:
Andrew McGregor
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured al-Fashir in late October after an 18-month siege, consolidating RSF control over western Sudan and providing a potential capital for a new state. After entering al-Fashir, the RSF carried out mass looting, ethnic targeting, and killed 460 people at the al-Saudi maternity hospital in an attack that brought international outrage. Parallel RSF sieges in Kordofan indicate a strategy to divide Sudan. The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) is struggling to maintain control, but still currently favors a military solution over diplomatic negotiations.
Topic:
Security, Armed Conflict, Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, and al-Fashir

22. Toward a Fairer EU-Tunisia Agricultural Partnership

Author:
Imen Louati
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Tunisian policymakers approach agriculture as the main economic tool to improve the country’s trade balance. Optimizing the trade balance as the primary objective has led to a dual strategy for the agricultural sector: to promote exports of products for which Tunisia has a comparative advantage – olive oil, dates, citrus fruits, and fish – while reducing its dependence on imports of staple foods – cereals, milk, and beef – in the interest of safeguarding national food security. This dual strategy has created tension in the agricultural policy. The free trade liberalization facilitated by the country’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) is counterbalanced by protections for domestic producers, using measures such as tariff and non-tariff barriers, particularly for sensitive foodstuffs (agricultural products that a country considers highly important to its national interests and therefore seeks to protect from full trade liberalization).1 The simultaneous goals of prioritizing food security and protecting national farming interests, while also integrating with international markets, prevent trade policies from effectively balancing export promotion and import needs. The inherent contradiction of these objectives has not only compromised Tunisia’s agricultural policy but also directly contributed to supply chain disruptions and the temporary disappearance of essential food items from the national market. The sustained dependence on imported staples has, in turn, exacerbated the wider economic crisis, contributing directly to a significant rise in Tunisia’s external debt and straining the foreign currency reserves needed for servicing that debt. As Tunisia is currently engaged in negotiations to update its trade agreement with the EU, there is an urgent need to reevaluate Tunisia’s trade policy framework to prevent the negotiation process from locking the country into unsustainable and irreversible policy choices. In that spirit, this policy analysis traces the roots of Tunisia’s agricultural trade policies, examining key multilateral obligations and the asymmetric outcomes of its trade agreements with the EU. It outlines how the deep power imbalance between the EU and Tunisia is affecting Tunisia’s agricultural policies and documents the critiques and resistance to deeper trade integration among Tunisian civil society, unions, and farmers. Building on the evidence gathered through analysis and semistructured interviews with stakeholders from civil society organizations, farmer unions, and the EU representative in Tunisia, this report proposes a six-point proactive strategy to redefine the EU-Tunisia trade relationship.
Topic:
European Union, Partnerships, Food Sovereignty, and Agricultural Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, North Africa, and Tunisia

23. Financing Water Justice: International Aid and Development in the MENA Region

Author:
Dana Abi Ghanem
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The need for water justice in the MENA region represents a pressing policy challenge, as governments confront pressures from climate change that threaten water resources. The region is considered one of the most water-scarce in the world,1 but its geographic diversity means that different countries in MENA face a litany of challenges when securing water and food for their populations in just and sustainable ways. Several of them must address systemic issues in water governance, including unequal allocation, inadequate infrastructure, and uneven access among rural, urban, and displaced populations. Others face increasing droughts, driving vast areas that rely on agriculture for their income into social and economic precarity. Climate change, population growth, and transboundary water tensions further complicate national and regional efforts to ensure fair and sustainable water management. Since the end of the Second World War, international aid and development organizations have launched technical cooperation projects, often focused on rural water supply and irrigation. Led by the WB and United Nations agencies over the last three decades, bilateral aid agencies and the EU, these international financial institutions (IFIs) have played a significant role in water development – promoting approaches like integrated water resource management (IWRM), as well as lending support for transboundary water management and water governance. This support can be traced back through reams of documentation and convenings that showcase technical assistance and financing for various water development efforts, including dam building, irrigation projects, and wastewater treatment plants, with claims often linked to sustainability principles and sound water management. Viewing these actions from a water justice lens, we argue that water development processes and structures pertaining to transparent decision-making, participation, and democracy are as important as equitability and fairness in access to water.2 In this context, the role that IFIs can play in enabling or hindering water justice across various countries in the MENA region warrants scrutiny. This report examines how IFIs might facilitate a just water future for the region, exploring how their practices, investments, and partnerships influence fairness in access, equity, sustainability, and transparency in water governance.
Topic:
Development, Foreign Aid, Water, and Climate Justice
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

24. Land Tenure in Lebanon: The Elephant in the Room of Agricultural Policy Debates

Author:
Christophe Maroun
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
“Land for those who work it.” This popular slogan, heralded by anti-colonialists and anti-imperialists worldwide, as well as by peasant movements such as La Via Campesina and the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil, encapsulates a global demand for agrarian reforms that put peasants at the heart of food systems. Yet while global conversations about food production and rural development have had to confront the uncomfortable issue of land tenure, in Lebanon land remains the elephant in the room of national agrarian policy debates. The question of land distribution and access in Lebanon touches on the very foundations of the country’s political economy, which is based on rent extraction, clientelism, and elite capture. A tangle of different land regimes has enabled political and economic elites to continuously convert land into speculative private assets, slowly eroding the social value of land while turning it into a commodity and a source of political power. The persistence of land-based power and elite resistance has historically blocked any meaningful structural reform. In parallel, by preferring donor-driven, technical interventions in agrarian and food policies that avoid the core issue of unequal land access, the Lebanese state functions as a guarantor of existing class structures. This article argues that reforming land access in Lebanon is the essential structural condition for cultivating a fair and sustainable agricultural system rooted in agroecology. It also proposes specific reformist policies and measures toward that goal. In the current political landscape, redistributive land reform – the transfer of tenure rights to new beneficiaries to provide more equitable access – remains distant. Nevertheless, pragmatic alternatives exist to improve land access to vulnerable communities and safeguard precarious agricultural lands. These include strengthening the use of communal amiri lands, protecting agricultural zones from speculation, and activating idle land.
Topic:
Environment, Transitional Justice, Land Tenure, and Agricultural Policy
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

25. Venezuela: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Author:
Anil Anand
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA)
Abstract:
America’s attack on Venezuela—alongside threats to annex Greenland, incorporate Canada as its 51st state, attack Colombia, or seize control of the Panama Canal—raises existential concerns about America’s commitment to a rule-based order and the legitimacy of the prevailing system for global governance.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Order, and Nicolas Maduro
Political Geography:
South America, Venezuela, and United States of America

26. How IPLCs Can Leverage BRICS for Inclusive Environmental Governance

Author:
Metolo Foyet
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Nkafu Policy Institute
Abstract:
As global power shifts toward multipolarity, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs)face a pivotal chance to influence the emerging governance architecture of the BRICS+ alliance.Western-led frameworks (UNFCCC, CBD) recognize Indigenous rights but still struggle withimplementation. BRICS, representing over half the world’s population and major biodiversity,offers an alternative platform to advance plural knowledge systems and South–South solidarity. This brief proposes embedding Indigenous leadership within BRICS institutions, aligning newnorms with UNDRIP and ILO 169, and creating financial and knowledge instruments that sustaincommunity-led conservation. The goal is shared sovereignty in environmental decision-making,not token participation. The central question is whether BRICS can evolve from a geopolitical and financial bloc into a rights-based governance platform where IPLCs become co-architects ofglobal environmental policy, and whether multipolar governance can close implementation gapsby embedding Indigenous authority at the design stage.
Topic:
Environment, Governance, Indigenous, BRICS, and Multipolarity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

27. Adapting Benin’s Battle with Violent Militant Groups

Author:
Anouar Boukhars
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Persistent militant Islamist group attacks in the northern border regions of Benin have posed a growing security threat to the coastal West African region. Benin has made noteworthy institutional reforms to strengthen its defense and security forces. Yet, accelerated and refocused training is needed to translate this into more adaptive, operational capabilities to effectively counter the militant insurgency. Empowering local commanders, pairing enhanced force mobility with strike capability, and fusing interagency intelligence sharing are priority operational adaptations needed to sustain pressure on the insurgents. Effective counterinsurgency in northern Benin requires operationalizing a population-centric protection model and ethos embedded within the defense and security forces.
Topic:
Governance, Reform, Islamism, and Instability
Political Geography:
Africa and Benin

28. Revitalizing Integrated Tactical Units to Combat West Africa’s Irregular Militant Groups

Author:
Fatai Alli
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Legacy battalion-based formations designed for conventional, linear warfare are poorly matched for the dispersed, fast-moving insurgent threats confronting multiple West African countries. Enhanced operational mobility ensures reach, speed, and tactical unpredictability. Effectiveness in contemporary irregular warfare depends on integrated tactical units, intelligence-enabled maneuver, and sustained operational reach.
Topic:
Security, Counterinsurgency, Non State Actors, Armed Forces, and Military
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa

29. Can Indonesia Fight Disinformation Without Oppression?

Author:
Ika Idris and Eka Nugraha Putrais
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA)
Abstract:
Indonesia is attempting to regulate disinformation and foreign propaganda, risking the country’s democracy, which is already in decline.
Topic:
Democracy, Institutions, Propaganda, and Disinformation
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Southeast Asia

30. AI and the Future of Work in Cameroon: Preparing theWorkforce for Emerging Opportunities

Author:
Larissa Ntoubia and Stephane Atangana
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Nkafu Policy Institute
Abstract:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a transformative opportunity for Cameroon’s labor market andoverall economic development. With the launch of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy(SNIA) in July 2025 , Cameroon aims to become a continental hub for AI innovation by 2040. Thestrategy includes ambitious sets ambitious targets : training 60,000 AI professionals (of whom40% will be women), creating 12,000 direct jobs AI jobs, and increasing AI’s contribution tonational GDP to around 0.8 – 1.2% by 2040 through applications in key sectors such asagriculture, health, education and justice. While these targets signal a strong political commitment, achieving them will require overcoming significant structural constraints that are common across the continent. Experience from otherAfrican countries shows that the successful implementation of national AI strategies depends onreliable digital and energy infrastructure, clear regulatory frameworks for data governance and privacy, and sufficient institutional capacity to manage complex multi-sector programme. Thefeasibility of the SNIA will therefore rest not only on its design but also on the government’s abilityto address these foundational prerequisites.
Topic:
Innovation, Artificial Intelligence, Labor Market, and Jobs
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon