The following paper explores the common geo-economic interests of Middle Eastern countries on water, energy, trade and security. It comprises three contributions, an introduction to the proposed goal of an Economic Confederal Union, with some background on the energy nexus in the region by Luay al-Khatteeb and two arguments describing how this can work in the water and electricity sectors, by Azzam Alwash and Harry Istepanian.
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Previously the founding director of Iraq Energy Institute, currently Minister of Electricity – Republic of Iraq, Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy (Columbia University-SIPA) and a former Foreign Policy Fellow at Brookings Institution.
His professional experiences span over twenty years in business development and public policy with executive capacities as director and senior advisor to various multilateral institutions, international oil companies, commercial banks and management consulting firms. He is a frequent commentator on issues related to energy security, economics, and politics in the Middle East. He is working on two books, the first addresses the comparative energy policy frameworks in federal systems, and the second on the political economy of Iraq post 2003.
His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Brookings Institution, Harvard University, Columbia University, The National Interest, The Huffington Post, Al-Monitor, CNN, MEES, the Petroleum-Economist and The National among others. Dr. al-Khatteeb earned his Ph.D. in Political Economy from the University of Exeter.
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Dr. Azzam Alwash was born in Kut, Iraq in 1958 and left to the United States in 1978 where he completed his graduate work with a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1988. He practiced in the environmental and geotechnical field for over 20 years.
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He started Eden Again, a program to put the spotlight on the drying of the marshes of southern Iraq, under the auspices of the Free Iraq Foundation, where he is a member of the board of directors. After the removal of Saddam Hussien, he moved back to Iraq to work on the restoration of the marshes and founded Nature Iraq, an Iraqi NGO focusing on the preservation of the environment of Iraq and its cultural heritage. of southern Iraq, an effort that earned him the Takreem award in 2011 and The Goldman Environmental Prize for the 2013. The story of the restoration is told in a book titled Eden Again: Hope in the marshes of Iraq, and a scientific summary of the data collected on bio diversity of Iraq over the past 15 years by scientists associated with Nature Iraq was published in a book titled Key BioDviserty Areas of Iraq.
In 2006, and in recognition of the need of Iraq to improve its undergraduate education, he became a founding member of the board of trustees of the American University of Iraq – Sulaimani. The mission of the university is to be the builder of the future leadership of Iraq and the region through the use of the liberal arts. While achieving their academic goals, students who represent the mosaic of Iraq are interacting and forming life long friendships through living together and sharing hardships as well having honest discussions about the modern and ancient history of the region. The first graduating class was in 2011 and the university now has some 1400 students with plans to expand to a 5000 students population.
Dr. Alwash is working now on issues of water and the environment through Nature Iraq and American University to promote the idea of cooperation on water management and making water an instrument of peace rather than the source of tension in the future middle east.
Harry Istepanian is a PMP certified, independent Chartered Engineer (CEng.) with more than 30 years of experience in large-scale power and water utility and IWPP projects in developing countries, including SE Asia and MENA in addition to New Zealand and Australia.
During his professional career in New Zealand and overseas, Harry was involved in more than 40 large to mid-scale projects with hands-on experience in feasibility studies, project’s economic evaluation, design, installation, and commissioning of power generation, transmission, distribution networks and most recently seawater desalination. He worked for major international engineering consultancy firms including Parsons Brinckerhoff, AECOM, Power Engineers Inc at different capacities. He was also appointed by many international organizations including the World Bank, USAID and USTDA to work on several development projects in Asia and Africa.
Harry Istepanian is considered one of the pioneer researchers in energy economics, policies and reform in post-conflict states, most specifically Iraq. During the last several years, as a senior fellow of Iraq Energy Institute, he was advocating for reforming the electricity sector in Iraq and introducing PPP as a way to resolve the country’s power shortage. He has several published op-eds, peer review articles, and conference papers published in international journals and magazines including Brookings Institute, Power Engineering International and the Electricity Journal.
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