Conclusion

Library shelves groan under the weight of decades worth of policy studies on the Middle East. Every aspect of the region’s foreign affairs, politics, economic development, social and educational policy, and agricultural strategies seems to have been examined closely. Yet very few of those studies consider the provision of public services, and that is a mistake.

Public services such as power, water, and waste seem hopelessly pedestrian and remote from serious policy concerns in a world of glamorous conferences and high-wire diplomacy. Few scholars of the region have been to cities and neighborhoods where services are irregular. Their contacts, almost inevitably living in wealthy neighborhoods in capital cities, have found work-arounds. The failure to provide services is lamentable, but too often it is seen as marginal to the real issues at hand.

This is the Conclusion section of Sustainable States: Environment, Governance, and the Future of the Middle East. Please click here for the full report.