Kuwait

On October 16, Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah dissolved Parliament, citing concerns about security and finances in an era of reduced oil revenue. There are a number of ironies in this latest political development in Kuwait.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis that encompasses environmental, economic, and political concerns related to the issue of water security.

Asked to describe Feedwise’s mission in a sentence, one of the organization’s founders, Taibah Al Mansour, says, “We nourish society.” Made up of a core group of 25 Kuwaiti youth, including Taibah and her co-founders Ali Burhaama and Shahad Al-Busairi, Feedwise is attempting to tackle a variety of issues, from feeding the hungry to addressing...

If held as scheduled in June 2017, Kuwait’s legislative elections would mark the end of the first Kuwaiti Parliament to serve its full four-year term since 2003. The present Parliament, elected amid a wide-ranging opposition boycott, is unsurprisingly loyalist and thus has not challenged the government to advance a political reform agenda.

In the cities of the Gulf states, white and unmarked walls are the standard. But in Kuwait, Jedareyat is doing something unusual and innovative: organizing local artists to paint colorful murals on buildings around the city. Aiming to combat visual pollution in Kuwait, Jedareyat is a volunteer group founded by Sulaiman Alrodhan in early 2016. The team, which also consists of Abdulaziz Alreshoud, Hind Francis, and Ameena Almutawa, scours the city and crowdsources for dead walls and artists who can transform them into picture-worthy landmarks. AGSIW spoke with Sulaiman about how the initiative works as a medium between building owners and artists, the messages the group hopes to portray through the murals, and the strong spirit of volunteerism that runs through the team’s work.

Kuwait’s plans to expand its oil and gas production capacity have faced decades of delays, almost entirely due to debilitating discord between Kuwait’s Parliament (the National Assembly) and executive branch of government. The oil ministry and state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), however, are at last moving forward with significant new oil and gas projects as...

Citizens of the Gulf’s leading parliamentary monarchies have access to a pressure point that other Gulf citizens do not: If the ruling family-led executive is refusing reforms or taking unilateral political actions, they may withhold their participation in elections. Yet this past month dramatically demonstrated the limited power of the political boycott, and the considerable...

This post is part of a series examining women’s labor force participation in the Gulf Arab states, including areas of growth and challenges facing women in the Gulf. The Gulf Arab states have made notable progress in recent years in reducing gender inequalities in education and labor force participation, however, women have not made the same gains...