MENA

Africa’s largest country is at a crossroads: with the end of the Bouteflika era, a new chapter begins. Will it be accompanied by real change?

Jihadist insurgency, geostrategic competition, smuggling, and migrant flows. More than anywhere in Africa – and perhaps the world – the Sahel is where these phenomena come together, fuelling social and economic crises. Keeping an eye on the Sahel in 2020 will be paramount.

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In contrast with its assertiveness in Syria, Russia’s role in most conflicts in the MENA region consists of proclaiming its non-alignment and keeping all actors content. Moscow does not shy away from casting itself as a true power-broker in the region. It acts as an allegedly impartial mediator that gets along with all actors and respects each country's sovereignty, while trying to find a middle ground, or at least facilitate dialogue, between the stakeholders it deems reliable and important enough.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018, has been equally condemned by all the remaining parties: Russia, China, the European Union, and of course

Eight years of a bloody conflict, over 5.6 million refugees mostly spread across Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, an estimated $250 billion – according to the United Nations – to rebuild a devastated country, an exhausted population: Syria is undeniably the most consuming crisis in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), whose consequences will long reverberate on the entire region.