CIHEAM Press Review

The Middle East’s population is growing almost twice as fast as the world overall, and one-third of its people are under the age of 15.
As Joe Biden takes his first trip to the region as president, he plans to focus on the prospects for peaceful international relations. A key factor often overlooked is the Middle East’s lack of opportunities for young people.

Ettadhamen, a marginalised district on the outskirts of Tunis, wears unrest well. Over the weekend and into this week, violent protests have dominated life in this overlooked and restive place.
The district is not unique. Over the past few days, protests have erupted in working-class neighbourhoods in at least 15 locations across Tunisia, in response to declining living conditions, poverty and endemic unemployment, especially among the country’s young people.

ANKARA — Twenty-five-year-old Fatih, a graduate of economics from Istanbul’s Marmara University, remains jobless despite his degree from the respected college and several internships at corporate businesses during his studies. Like hundreds of thousands of other university graduates in Turkey, he is grappling with an uncertain future in a country mired in economic turmoil, which the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened.

Since the end of French colonization in 1956, successive Tunisian governments have managed to ensure access to healthy and sufficient food for the vast majority of its citizens. Tunisia has a low level of hunger, with a 2018 score of 7.9 out of 50 on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), and this number has continued to trend downwards. Most Tunisians eat their fill and some even allow themselves luxury food products from time to time. Physical access to something to eat without too much trouble is not the challenge. The question is, given the context of a stagnant economy and high unemployment: at what cost?