This study will hopefully serve as a starting point for a series of reports that will explain the unique challenges and opportunities that think tanks in different regions of the Global South experience. It also intends to test the underlying assumptions of what a think tank is or ought to be, given that prevailing definitions and benchmarks tend to be rooted in the West. We chose to start with the Gulf region, specifically, the 6 Gulf Cooperation Council countries, given that their current political economy sits, in some ways, at an inflection point. The GCC countries share the overriding economic objective of diversifying their economies since, in the next few decades, their oil wealth will deplete significantly. But this collective goal is underpinned by the shifting sands of geopolitics, where longstanding political stances and alliances are now undergoing profound metamorphoses. This will necessitate considerable finessing on the policy-making front. And, yet, think tanks appear to be under-utilized in the region. We set out to understand why.

While the CRAs play an important role in assessing a country’s creditworthiness and aiding investors to understand the continent’s fiscal and monetary position, they do not always give a comprehensive and balanced rating and analysis of the continent. CRAs are constrained by a limited understanding of contextual dynamics, various biases, and limited local private sector insights. These gaps call for the need for a pan-African rating coalition that would enhance the capacity of local credit rating agencies to solidify local analyses, highlight local nuances, curate regional databases, and shape proper investor responses to African events.

The growing acceptance of digitization and artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is one of the key factors shaping the future of work. However, this phenomenon has raised concerns regarding job loss, unrealistic expectations around productivity, and the necessity for workers to keep up with the changing digital landscape in workplaces all over the world. The future of work is an even more challenging concept in emerging economies, where it is influenced by factors like the nation's economic development, demographic changes, and mechanisms relating to technological advancements/adaptation.

The Middle East is increasingly turning to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and Green Sukuk to finance their green transitions, as these sustainable financing solutions gain momentum worldwide. In 2022, ESG and Green Sukuk achieved a remarkable growth rate of 35 percent, reaching a global value of total funding deployed of $8.1 billion. However, the GCC region continues to dominate this financial sector, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) outperforming other countries in both total issuance and average issuance size, as seven out of the top 10 issuances in 2022 were from KSA.

Every five years, the World Expo brings together representatives from different countries to engage and address the world's most pressing issues. With the participation of 192 nations, Expo 2020 Dubai set a record that begs to be broken. Amidst high expectations, the next Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan in 2025. Africa had a significant presence at Expo 2020 Dubai. For the first time in the 170-year history of World Expos, every African country participated and had its own pavilion. They had the opportunity to display their unique future visions and to focus on commercial opportunities and collaboration. However, the majority of participating African nations lacked the strategies necessary to take full advantage of this unparalleled global stage.

As the world gets warmer, the earth is getting “sun-bathed” you may think, but the world is sunburned and urgently needs sunscreen. In the African continent, the effects of climate change range from increasingly frequent droughts in Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan, to sudden floods in Chad and Niger, which have disrupted local communities and their economic livelihoods. Present multilateral and multi-stakeholder efforts in climate adaptation measures, including early detection and warning systems (EDWS), do not symbiotically engage with pastoral communities. Rather they employ cut-and-paste techno-managerial approaches, which do not fit well in unique cultural and market contexts

It is widely argued that a hydrogen-driven global order is likely to reduce geopolitical vulnerability and be less prone to international security risks than the current hydrocarbon-driven one. It is expected to do so by increasing the share of energy produced domestically, shifting geostrategic competition from a focus on grabbing resources—a long-standing concern in Africa—to mastering technology and offering states opportunities for economic diversification. However, geopolitical and security risk trends in Africa suggest that hydrogen value chains will likely exacerbate previous fault lines created by regional power plays, derived resource geopolitics, and historic colonial political influences.

Philanthropy has always been at the heart of the Gulf's socioeconomic framework, with the practice of giving having deep religious roots. Philanthropists in the region — whether family businesses or individuals — deepen their religious convictions through the traditional Islamic obligations and voluntary practices of "Zakat" (mandatory almsgiving), "Sadaqah" (voluntary charity), and "Waqf" (charitable endowments). These practices are intended to bring the community together while serving humanitarian causes and needs. Yet, despite the importance of giving in communal rituals, research and studies on Gulf philanthropy have been sparse, leading to the question — what is the impact of Gulf philanthropy?

Private capital investment flows (PCIF) in Africa are rising, having increased by 118% from $3.4B in 2020 to $7.4B in 2021. By the first half of 2022, the continent had recorded an increased cumulative deal value of $4.7B in one of the strongest half-years of private capital activity recorded. However, compared to venture capital, which accounted for more than half of PCIF in 2021, there seems to be a low institutional investor appetite, dragged by an outdated perception of African risk and the relative scarcity of data. Additionally, some institutional investors, who rely solely on the limited network in country databases, are vulnerable to a static and myopic view of the continent that may constrain their visibility on new asset classes.

The UAE is becoming a significant logistics player on the African continent as it leverages its technical capacity to widen its scope of soft power influence. In line with its 5-year plan to expand its partnerships with high-growth African markets, the UAE has established an extensive network of logistics projects across the four regions of the African continent through the global logistics firm DP World ( DPW). To assert itself as a reliable African logistics partner, the UAE should pursue mutual interests alongside key players like China and other stakeholders while ensuring that agreements have clearly defined roles that ensure the effective implementation of projects.

By the end of 2023, around 29 African countries will have held elections of various forms: president, senate, local, county, and national assemblies, among others. These countries will have to face a shift in priorities that aligns with the manifestos of the incoming leadership, with some building on the outgoing government while others make radical changes. Power transitions can sometimes be murky and divisive along ethnic, party, or cultural lines. Therefore, African countries facing election transitions must center their unity on economic priorities rather than traditional political divides to ensure long-term sustainable growth and sustained post-pandemic recovery.

Data scarcity presents a significant global challenge and hurts the growth of developing countries and their ability to reap the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution. Data access is necessary for proper planning and equitable distribution of resources. Data infrastructure is constrained by weak technical and financial capacity, underemployment, and government inefficiencies. To improve data access in emerging markets by developing requisite local talent and technical capacity,, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are critical.

The world is resetting.

The last few years have been incredibly tumultuous. In a relatively short amount of time, humanity has had to contend with a rash of acute and protracted crises - a global pandemic, the intensifying ravages of climate change, war, and economic turmoil, to name just a few. As these different pressure points intersect and interlock, they are driving us towards a collective social, political, and economic inflection point.

A country's creative sector has the potential to change its economy and dramatically boost its soft power on the international stage. However, many emerging markets don’t always prioritise the creative sector as an engine for growth. Within Africa, in particular, the absence of data and the informal nature of the creative sector in African countries make it difficult to determine the extent to which creative businesses contribute to economic growth and the critical factors for the sector's development. Effective data collection and analysis is the first step in understanding how African countries' creative industries are performing. This could also help to improve how the African creative industry presents itself on a global scale.

Barely had the world begun its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic when the Russia-Ukraine war set off an avalanche of economic ripple effects. According to the IMF, economic growth in Africa was expected to slow in 2022 from 4.6% in 2021 to 3.8%. The disruption of wheat, oil, and fertilizer supply chains, especially in emerging markets, has led to high cost-push inflation rates as import-dependent economies are strained due to higher import costs and fuel prices. Already feeling the inflationary effects on purchases, vulnerable citizens have been further affected by government efforts to shrink the economy by hiking interest rates and reducing expenditures. When responding to global macroeconomic volatility, governments in emerging markets should balance contractionary policies with social protection.

African countries are facing numerous difficulties in accessing affordable debt to finance their development goals. In September, Kenya treasury bills performed at a record low of 38%, this comes less than 3 months after the country canceled a $982 million Eurobond after investors demanded interest rates of over 20%. In other parts of the continent, Ivory Coast delayed a Eurobond due to the high cost of borrowing from international creditors. Nigeria went ahead with a Eurobond issuance in March but at an interest rate of 8.35% which was two percentage points higher than a bond it had issued only six months earlier. The strains in accessing debt and the high cost of borrowing can partly be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the looming global economic crisis. But, even without these crises, African countries borrow at very high rates – research finds that African countries pay up to $300 million annually in unjustifiable interest rates.

A number of fault lines have emerged and deepened in university systems around the world. One of these is the cost of education. From the Chilean Winter, to South Africa’s #FeesMustFall, to the USA’s ticking time bomb of student debt, to more recent calls in Kenya for higher university fees to ease the burden on public universities and, by extension, the government, the issue of prohibitive tuition costs has become a recurrent, visible, and perhaps even existential problem for public and private universities alike.

Africa’s technology sector is exciting, multifaceted, and brimming with contradictions. Almost half a billion Africans are online, with another 300 million projected to join their ranks by 2025. That same year, the internet economy will likely contribute over 5% of the continent’s GDP. Riding on this expanding connectivity, African innovators are making serious waves - from fintech to transportation to e-commerce. Conversely, while countries like Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda are on track to achieving universal access by 2030, 600 million people still lack access to electricity. Meanwhile, less than 30% of Africans have access to a broadband connection and Africa accounts for only 1% of global data center capacity.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have ambitious plans to become the world's leading suppliers of hydrogen fuel. They will, however, also be ideal partners on green hydrogen projects being developed globally, particularly in areas with a lack of water. This is because green hydrogen production requires both renewable resources and a sizable amount of freshwater, and both Saudi Arabia and the UAE stand out as leaders in renewable energy and desalination.

India has played a significant role in the development of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in Africa. The country has a long history of cooperating with various African countries to combat and eradicate infectious diseases by offering generic medications at affordable prices. Additionally, it has launched development initiatives to enhance the skills of the local workforce and provide timely pharmaceutical aid. The African continent remains a lucrative market for pharmaceutical companies with fewer than 400 local drug makers supplying 1 billion people. By comparison, China and India, each with roughly 1.4 billion in population, have as many as 5,000 and 10,500 drug manufacturers, respectively.