Middle East and North Africa region
The Middle East and North Africa programme addresses severely water-stressed systems, the transition of major energy economies, extreme heat, and maritime and overland corridors of international importance. North African states also take part in the Africa programme. Regional work compares desalination, groundwater, power, food-import and heat dependencies while each country keeps control of its data and its decisions. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) coordinates the region as Consortium Secretariat. It is recorded as in formation, with two planned hubs that are coordination roles, not offices. Return to Six programme regions.
- 01InstitutionThe Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
- 02Service levelR0: information and enquiries
- 03In briefThe short answer
- 04Planned hubsCoverage by planned hub
- 05Shared systemsThe cross-border questions this region examines
- 06FocusDomains, tools and offerings in regional demand
- 07Key termsTerms used on this page
GCRI · Institution · service level R0
The short answer.
The Middle East and North Africa region of Nexus Consortiums addresses severely water-stressed systems, the transition of major energy economies, extreme heat, and maritime and overland corridors of international importance. Regional work compares desalination, groundwater, power, food-import and heat dependencies while each country keeps its data and decisions; the region is in formation.
Systemic exposure in Middle East and North Africa.
Where people and networks concentrate, the exposure through which shocks travel between systems, in Middle East and North Africa.
Coverage by planned hub.
Each planned hub coordinates shared-system work for a group of countries. No hub host decision is on record, so each is a planned coordination role rather than an operating site.
| Planned hub | Countries covered | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| United Arab Emirates | United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Iran (Islamic Republic of) | Heat, desalination, power, compute, ports, logistics and development readiness. |
| Saudi Arabia | Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, State of Palestine, Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco | Heat, water, cities, industrial systems, compute and Red Sea dependencies. |
The State of Palestine is in scope as a United Nations observer state. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia also take part in the Africa programme.
Domains, tools and offerings in regional demand.
Finance-readiness questions for the region's financial centres are translated by The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), which never lends, underwrites, rates or invests: energy-transition exposure in sovereign and public balance sheets; trade-finance and maritime-insurance questions for strategic corridors; technology and compute concentration in regional financial centres. See GRA's regional programmes.
- Priority domains: Water, energy, food, climate and hazards, trade and supply chains, health and biosecurity, finance and insurance.
- Foundry systems most used by regional missions: GRIx (data, evidence and risk products), DSS (scenarios and decision analysis), EOP (earth-observation evidence), EWS (forecast verification and warning support), NET (connectivity and continuity), NEXCORE (infrastructure enrolment and placement).
- Offerings most relevant to regional demand: National Risk, Innovation and Portfolio Baseline; Sector and Critical-Infrastructure Resilience; Sovereign Data, Compute and AI Capability; Cross-Border and Shared-System Missions; Finance, Insurance and Development Readiness.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Water stress | Freshwater withdrawn by all sectors as a share of the renewable freshwater available once environmental flow requirements are met; SDG indicator 6.4.2 measures it. |
| Cereal import dependency ratio | Cereal imports as a share of domestic cereal supply, measuring how far a country relies on trade for staples. |
| Heatwave | A period of abnormally hot weather relative to local conditions, defined by a threshold and minimum duration. |
| Programme status | The recorded state of a programme on Nexus pages: exploring, forming, constituted, active, paused or archived. A plan is never presented as an activity. |
Programme state and how to take part.
State on record: in formation. No regional host is on record, and no named consortium programme is recorded in this region. The programme and its two planned hubs are in formation. The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. Enquiries about the region go to the regional desk at middleeastnorthafrica@therisk.global, or to the Secretariat at contact@therisk.global; the acknowledgement gives a reference and names the next step. Programme engagement follows the sanctions and eligibility policy of Nexus Foundry, and no desk or call to action is offered where engagement is not available.
Questions and answers.
Is there a GCRI office in the Middle East and North Africa?
Does a country listed here have a national programme?
Who decides the regional agenda?
What role does The Global Risks Forum (GRF) play here?
Around GCRI.
Start with an enquiry.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.