Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center 63d ago

As climate pressures intensify across the Middle East and North Africa, human mobility is increasingly shaped by overlapping forces such as environmental degradation, economic crisis, governance failures, and conflict. Movement is rarely driven by climate alone, making it difficult to understand who moves, who stays, and why, especially as many affected communities remain underrepresented in policy and research. To address these issues, the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center will host a virtual panel discussion on May 11, from 4:00 PM to 5:15 PM Beirut Time, bringing together five researchers who conducted fieldwork in Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq. The panel will consist of Yasmine Zarhloule, nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, Armenak Tokmajyan, nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, Ilyssa Yahmi, assistant Professor of International Relations and Comparative Politics at the American University of Paris (AUP), Courtney Freer, a senior fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion, and Zeinab Shuker, assistant professor of sociology at Sam Houston State University, Texas. The discussion will explore how these intersecting pressures are reshaping mobility, the limits of local adaptation, and the gaps in current policy frameworks. It will also seek to highlight shared dynamics across cases, leading to a reflection on what more anticipatory and grounded policy responses could look like. The event will be in English and moderated by Camille Ammoun, nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. Viewers are invited to submit questions via the live chat feature on Facebook and YouTube. For more information, please contact Najwa Yassine at najwa.yassine@carnegie-mec.org.