A typology of regional cooperation projects

Regional cooperation projects between countries in the Middle East are expected to provide benefits to all parties involved but their feasibility is subject to social, economic and political constraints. This article uses a database of planned projects in the last decade and tries to detect types of projects that are less sensitive to the constraints. A typology of projects shows the prevalence of two main groups. A first group of projects avoids constraints by focusing on relatively high micro-economic viability but with low intensity of cooperation: these are economic-business projects and some infrastructure projects that are based on mere coordination between countries and mostly implemented separately in a single country. A second group of projects are infrastructure and public services projects that involve a number of countries, and implementation through joint planning and management. We conclude that the response to the constraints for regional cooperation is found in the concentration in projects that do not require any intensive continuous contact between the populations, by choosing business projects that are implemented separately in each country, or public projects that are jointly implemented, but on the basis of cooperation between public officers, not necessarily the population.