The Benban Solar Park, Africa’s biggest photovoltaic power station, demonstrates Egypt’s ability to attract foreign investment, implement complex infrastructure projects and align its energy goals with environmental sustainability. As this column explains, the next stage of the country’s clean energy transition requires a diversified financial ecosystem, together with committed and well-coordinated policy support.

The Middle East and North Africa is rapidly becoming the global epicentre of water and food insecurity. Drawing on regional evidence and global comparisons, this column identifies urgent priorities and offers policy strategies to strengthen resilience in this particularly climate-stressed part of the world before the crisis deepens further. The tools exist: what is needed is the political will and coordinated action to use them.

Arab economies face a dual threat to the stability of their labour markets: structural unemployment among university graduates alongside the emerging disruption of job displacement driven by artificial intelligence. This column outlines the disconnect between what the higher education system is producing and what is required in emerging technological and entrepreneurial sectors. Governments in the region need to embark on a systemic re-imagining of education, skills development and alignment between universities and employers.