Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Islamist parties are garnering electoral success. A strong economic policy is essential for ensuring that voters remain confident and supportive of Islamist parties in the future.
Small- and medium-size enterprises are already playing a key role in the economies of the Arab world. But limited access to financing prevents those enterprises from unleashing their full potential, boosting economic growth, and creating much-needed jobs.
Iraq hosted the Arab League summit last week, a significant development for a country that has been marginalized from its Arab neighbors. But as Arab relations with Iraq improve, relations with its neighbor Syria are deteriorating.
With democratic change struggling to take root in the Arab world, it remains to be seen whether Turkey can serve as a model for those who hope to usher the region through the difficult transition to a more democratic order.
Arab regimes, challenged by rapid demographic growth and an increase in the number of educated job seekers, must transition their economies toward more merit-based competition and economic performance through productive investment.
Iran's threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and strangle the U.S. oil supply could provide a much-needed impetus for the United States to reconsider its energy policies.
While the Yanukovych government has managed to initiate a number of economic reforms, they were implemented only partially and their success has been limited.
As Italian and Spanish spreads on government bonds decline, Europeans are breathing a big sigh of relief. But true recovery requires big structural shifts that will take many years.
The Palestinian economy made significant advances in recent years under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, yet questions remain regarding the sustainability of such progress in light of the ongoing diplomatic stalemate with Israel.
Putin's economic agenda offers only more of the same heavy-handed policies that have failed to modernize Russia and made the country more vulnerable to external shocks.