Background In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought new challenges in countries already struggling to manage the additional social and economic pressure of hosting refugees and displaced. The lockdown measures put in place in many countries led to closure of businesses and halt of economic activities. Although social support measures were put in...

Background COVID-19 has had severe economic impacts on local economies and communities, particularly the most vulnerable. The pandemic has disrupted supply chains and led to reverse migration, stagnant rural non-farm economies, and devastating consequences for community/women groups, youth, and informal workers.  Extreme poverty is likely to...

This article is part of the CMI/FEMISE joint “COVID-19 Med Policy Brief Series”, aimed at addressing the urgent issue of the COVID-19 socio-economic effects and impact on the EU-Mediterranean region.

Context   From December 7th to 11 2020, around twenty youth from the Mediterranean region have actively taken part to the Anna Lindh / CMI’s Young Mediterranean Voices (YMV) Communication Lab. With the aim to challenge extremist narratives in the digital world, they embarked in a five days’ workshop, during which they exchanged with leading...

Context   Local economic development (LED) is key to achieve sustainable development goals as well as a pathway to eradicate poverty and increase shared prosperity. Cities in MENA have registered relatively dynamic economic growth and investment rates during the first decade of the century, however, political instability and security threats have...