Future diplomacy in the Middle East: the challenges of water, energy and climate

Yana Abu-Taleb is the Jordanian Director of EcoPeace Middle East, a regional organisation that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development and advance peace efforts in the Middle East. Abu Taleb leads EcoPeace activities concerning the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, shared water resources, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. Her responsibilities include supervising international project development and management, as well as liaising with and lobbying governmental and private sector figures and organisations on major regional policy issues relevant to environmental protection and transboundary water. She is heavily involved in promoting and facilitating national and regional dialogue to advance policy processes needed for sustaining peace.

Cinzia Bianco is a Visiting Fellow at ECFR, a Berlin-based think tank, where her areas of expertise include political, security and economic developments in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf region, as well as their relations with Europe. She is also a Senior Analyst at Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consulting firm that assesses risks and opportunities among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Previously, Bianco was a research fellow for the European Commission’s project on EU-GCC relations, ‘Sharaka’. She holds a PhD from the University of Exeter, where she researched threat perceptions in GCC countries after the 2011 Arab uprisings.

Mary Fitzgerald is a researcher and analyst specialising in the Mediterranean region with a particular focus on Libya. She has consulted for a number of international organisations including in the areas of peace building and civil society.

She has worked with the International Crisis Group (ICG), the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) among others. She is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London, and an Associate Fellow at ISPI in Milan. Mary has also worked on wider initiatives with UNESCO, the Anna Lindh Foundation, the British Council and other cultural organisations. Her writing has appeared in publications including Foreign Policy, The New Yorker online, the Washington Post, Financial Times and the Guardian.

Martina Klimes’s work centres around water diplomacy and water cooperation, climate and security, dialogue facilitation, incentives, and third-party involvement in negotiation processes.

Her book, Using Carrots to Bring Peace, Negotiation and Third Party Involvement (World Scientific, 2016), focuses primarily on the effectiveness of aid conditionality and other external tools that third parties – from states and regional organizations to NGOs – bring to the table in peace negotiations. Martina holds a PhD degree in International Relations and is an Associated Research Fellow at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm.

Stephanie Williams has extensive experience in mediation, diplomacy and security policy, having worked for the United Nations and the United States government throughout her career. She is the former special advisor on Libya to the UN Secretary-General. Williams has previously served as the acting special representative and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), as well as the deputy special representative of UNSMIL for political affairs. As a senior foreign service officer, Williams served as chargé d’affaires ad interim for the US embassy in Libya. She also served as deputy chief of mission at the US embassies in Iraq and Jordan, among other assignments.