The Environmental Civil Society project launches a new Working Group as part of the Middle East Transformation Initiative.
Many governments in the Middle East and North Africa strain to respond to environmental crises. Citizens across the region have come together and formed civil society groups to address some of these challenges. The CSIS Middle East Program is seeking to understand their diverse efforts, exploring their successes and failures and the applicability of the lessons they have learned to other settings. CSIS has formed a working group of leading civil society actors from across the MENA region to share lessons learned, provide new analysis, and build a new regional network. The working group’s members have on the ground experience in a variety of fields, including as analysts, activists, non-profit officials, and journalists.
Adel Azouni is a Ph.D. student in environmental geology at the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis. He was previously project coordinator on a green economy initiative with ''El Space'' in Tunisia, and radio host and editor-in-chief of an environmental program on Radio Misk. He has been passionate about social and ecological activism since the Tunisian revolution and has been involved in various initiatives for the protection of nature. One such initiative was the EARTH'na collective, which developed a periodic report on environmental rights and development and submitted it to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2022. UNDP Climate selected Adel as one of five young leaders from the Arab world who give hope in the fight against climate change and was chosen by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives as an AfriFOODlinks youth ambassador.
Seif Ben Youssef is a Tunisian civil society activist. He has worked as project coordinator at Avocats Sans Frontières – Tunisia, an international non-governmental organization promoting human rights and access to justice, since November 2021. He previously worked as a project coordinator at the Tunisian Organization for Social Cohesion. He is a doctoral student in public law at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of Tunis, where he also teaches international law.
Rumaitha Al Busaidi is an Omani scientist and environmental advocate working on sustainable solutions to climate change. Rumaitha currently serves as business development manager at Hydrom, the orchestrator of green hydrogen development in Oman. She is also an executive board director of the only non-governmental environmental organization in the country, Environment Society of Oman, and she actively works with the Omani government on sustainable diversification and energy transition strategies. Her 2021 TED talk examining women as the key to our climate future has garnered more than 1 million views. Internationally, she has advised the Biden administration on developing a climate resilience standard for U.S. foreign aid focusing on empowering women as a form of climate mitigation, the government of Greenland on creating a framework for sustainable tourism, and the Arab League on empowering Arab youth in climate change negotiations spaces.
Mohamed Omar Kardous is a junior political scientist and researcher at the Global Institute 4 Transitions (GI4T), an independent think tank in Tunisia. He is also an activist, and his involvement in Tunisian civil society has broadened his political understanding. Kardous is devoted to the fights for fundamental liberties and rights as well as concerns of social and environmental justice. His primary research interests are public policies, democratic transitions, and political ecology. Kardous intends to continue his career in political science research by addressing universal concerns relating to fundamental rights, equality, and political ecology in relation to political systems.
Fatima Zohra Lamrani is the program coordinator of the Ecology and Sustainability project of the Moroccan office the Heinrich Böll Foundation North Africa. Since joining the foundation in March 2019, she has worked on environmental issues related to resource governance, sustainable and just energy transition, and climate change impacts. She previously worked with the German development cooperation agency (GIZ) as a technical advisor on projects related to the planning and implementation of integrated water resource management and sustainable sanitation infrastructure. Trained as an architect, her previous work focused on sustainable housing and socio-cultural infrastructure in Morocco. In particular, she contributed to a survey of nomadic lifestyles and housing and took part in restoration projects as part of the ENA PATERRE UNESCO ATCDD Chair: Earthen Architecture, Constructive Cultures, and Sustainable Development.
Neeshad Shafi is an environmentalist and policy-oriented social change advocate, best known for his work on social movements, climate, and environmental policies in the Middle East. He is the co-founder of the Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar, the first registered youth-led nonprofit association in Qatar. He is also the founder of Arab Youth 4 COP initiative and board member at Climate Action Network (CAN) Arab World. He was named in the Apolitical’s List of the 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy in both 2019 and 2022 and was recognized in the “Middle East’s Most Creative People in Business 2023 - Saving the Planet” category by Fast Company. Neeshad is a non-resident fellow at Middle East Institute and a youth fellow with Wilson Center. He holds a master’s degree in energy and environmental engineering and is based in Doha, Qatar.
Saad Uakkas is a youth climate and health engagement expert, TEDx speaker, Diana awardee, One Young World ambassador, UNESCO young researcher, WHO infodemic manager, Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, Clinton Global Initiative fellow, and Chevening scholar. He is now the North Africa Coordinator of the African Youth Initiative for Climate Change, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre youth advisory board member, and he led the organization of the children and youth pavilion at COP27 and COP28. He has represented youth in 60 global meetings, organized 35 campaigns and events, occupied leadership positions for four years in global youth organizations, and coordinated medical students' global COVID-19 response.
Maha Yassin is an independent researcher and a climate fellow at the Institute of Regional and International Studies of the American University of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq. She specializes in environmental policy, climate security, and activism in Iraq. Previously, she worked as a research fellow and outreach officer at Clingendael, managing the Basra Forum for Climate, Environment and Security. Yassin holds a master’s degree in communication studies from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, where she focused on media framing of environmental activism in Iraq, and a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Basra, where she studied the impact of sand and dust storms on food security in southern Iraq. Yassin has extensive experience in the humanitarian sector, having worked with several international nongovernmental organizations in Iraq and the Netherlands. Yassin also specializes in youth and civil society engagement for addressing environmental threats, particularly in southern Iraq.
Podcast Episode by Mohamed Omar Kardous and Aidan Aronoff — June 4, 2024
