The Politics of Foreign Aid in the Arab World: The Impact of the Arab Uprisings

On 13 February 2015, the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science hosted the launch of a special Issue of the journal Mediterranean Politics on The Politics of Foreign Aid in the Arab World: The Impact of the Arab Uprisings. Bringing together academics, NGO representatives, journalists, policy makers and students, the event focused on the changing state of aid in the Arab world in the wake of the Arab Uprisings and its significance for the region. With the profound hope that accompanied the democratic revolutions across the Arab world since December 2010, and the many promises made by external actors like the EU and the US to turn their backs on their previous support of authoritarian regimes through full support for the peoples’ uprisings, the theme of foreign aid seemed to have lost relevance just less than a year later. This sheds light on the deep disconnect between, on the one hand, official expressions of support for political, economic and social transformations in the MENA region and, on the other, the continuity in the management of foreign assistance programmes.