Tafahum wa Tabadul

Tafahum wa Tabadul

This project has started in December 2021 and aims to generate further understanding (tafahum) among regional stakeholders and to foster cooperation (tabadul) on common interests in West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula (WAAP) – a region that includes the GCC states, Iran, Iraq and Yemen. In the course of this project, various stakeholders like officials, academics and experts as well as civil society actors will be engaged on various levels with the aim of generating a political climate that is more conducive to regional cooperation. Furthermore it aims at collectively examining the energy-climate-health nexus – a concept that entails economic and ecologic sustainability, as well as regional health resilience,  and at fostering people-to-people mobility in the region through exchange activities in the fields of academia and civic education. This 1-year initiative is funded by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and builds on the results of the Tafahum project and the first phase of the Tafahum wa Tabadul project, which were implemented between 2018-2023 funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. 

Duration: December 2021 – May 2024 (current project phase) 

Team: Adnan Tabatabai (contact person), Dr. Sebastian Sons, Jan Hanrath, Sina Winkel, Thomas Pietzsch

Partner: Gulf Research Center Foundation

Donor: Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

Tafahum – An Ideational Fundament for West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula

Tafahum – An Ideational Fundament for West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula

by Christian Koch and Adnan Tabatabai

This CARPO Brief discusses the need to construct ideational pillars for a tafahum, or common understanding, of how to define a process towards regional integration and a shared security architecture for West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula (WAAP). This is an evolutionary process, which begins with the essential building blocks of overcoming the existing lack of trust and addressing not only the current political and ideological conflicts defining the region from different angles, but also the conceptual frameworks behind them. The Tafahum project provides such building blocks, including the pursuit of issue-oriented cooperation between regional actors on a variety of subjects, promoted through the support of external parties.

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