Eckart Woertz

Eckart Woertz is director of the Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, professor for contemporary Middle East history at the University of Hamburg and a non-resident senior research associate at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). His research interests comprise the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa, energy issues and food security. He is author of Oil for Food (Oxford University Press 2013), co-editor of the Water-Energy Food Nexus in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge 2016) and editor of GCC Financial Markets (Gerlach Press 2012).

Articles of him have been published in the Middle East Journal, Food Policy, Food Security, International Development Policy, the International Journal of Water Resources Development, Third World Quarterly, Global Environment, Globalizations, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, several Oxford Handbooks and other edited volumes. He has been a commentator to international media outlets and has contributed to various policy papers and reports.

He has been involved in numerous third-party projects, among them a Marie Curie grant and FP7 and H2020 projects of the European Commission. His consultancy engagements have included the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Saudi Ministry of Economy and Planning and international and regional organizations such as the European Parliament, UNCTAD, UNDP and the Union for the Mediterranean.

He serves on the editorial boards of Food Security and the Journal of Arabian Studies and holds a PhD in economics from Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he conducted research about structural adjustment and trade unions in Egypt. Before moving to Hamburg, he held positions at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), Sciences Po in Paris, Princeton University and the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. Prior to that he worked for banks in Germany and the United Arab Emirates in equity and fixed income trading.

Publicaciones externas

  • Woertz, Eckart and Soler i Lecha, Eduard. Populism and Euro-Mediterranean cooperation: The Barcelona Process 25 years after. Mediterranean Politics, 2020 (August). doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2020.1799165
  • Woertz, Eckart. Apoyando desde atrás: la política alemana en Oriente Medio. Anuario Internacional CIDOB 2020. Barcelona: Fundació CIDOB, 2020.
  • Hamade, Kanj;  Saghir, Cynthia;  Tala Ismail; Chaaban, Jad; Chalak, Ali;  Woertz, Eckart and Martínez; Irene. EU Policies on Agriculture and Rural Development in the MENA. MEDRESET Policy Papers, nº 4. (2018)
  • Zurayk, Rami; Woertz, Eckart and Bahn, Rachel  (eds), Crisis And Conflict In Agriculture (Wallingford, Oxfordshire: CABI, 2018) 
  • “Food Security in Iraq: Results from Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys,” Food Security, Vol.  9, Issue 3, (2017) 511-522
  • Allan, Tony ; Keulertz, Martin and Woertz, Eckart. "The Water–Food–Energy Nexus: An Introduction to Nexus Concepts and Some Conceptual and Operational Problems." International Journal of Water Resources Development, Volume 31, Issue 3, (September 2015) 301-11 
  • Woertz, Eckart and Keulertz, Martin. “The MENA and Food Trade Relations with Tropical Countries,” Food Security, Vol. 7, Issue 6 (December 2015), 1101-1111
  • Ghilès, Francis and Woertz, Eckart. “Tunisian Phosphates and the Politics of the Periphery,” in Political Economy of the Environment in the Middle East and North Africa, Harry Verhoeven (ed.) (London: Hurst; New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) 
  • “West Asia: Food imports amidst self-sufficiency illusions and agricultural reorientation,” in Oxford Handbook on Water, Food, and Society, Martin Keulertz, Tony Allan (eds.) (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2018)
  • "The Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Arid Regions: The Politics of Problemsheds" in Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy, Ken Conca and Erika Weinthal (eds.) (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press 2016) (with Martin Keulertz, Jeannnie Sowers and Rabi Mohtar)
  • Muro, Diego and Woertz, Eckart  “With an exiled president Skyping from Brussels, where now for Catalan independence?” The Conversation, 26 January 2018 
  • Jaafar, Hadi  and Woertz, Eckart  “It’s not funded just by oil and looting. How the Islamic State uses agriculture,” Monkey Cage Blog, Washington Post, 27 September 2016
  • Chaaban, Jad; Chalak, Ali ;Tala, Ismail; Abou Taha,Yasmine; Martinez, Irene; Woertz, Eckart. MEDRESET Concept Paper, nº. 7, September, 2017Agriculture and Development in the Wake of the Arab Spring,” International Development Policy, Vol. 7, Issue 1 (2017) 
  • Reconfiguration of the Global South. Africa, Latin America and the "Asian Century". Oxon: Routledge, 2016
  • Jaafar, Hadi H. ; Woertz, Eckart. Agriculture as a funding source of ISIS: A GIS and remote sensing analysis. Food Policy, Vol 64, October, 2016. pp. 14-25
  • L’acord sobre el clima de París i els Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible: són règims polítics que es reforcen o que es debiliten mútuament?. Revista econòmica de Catalunya, 73, pp. 44-49. 2016 (Carafa, L. and  Woertz E.)
  • Oil for Food. The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)
  • GCC Financial Markets: The World’s New Money Centers (as editor) (Berlin; London: Gerlach Press, 2012)
  •  “Financial Challenges of the Nexus: Pathways for investment in water, energy and agriculture in the Arab world,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, Spring 2015 (with Martin Keulertz)
  •  “Environment, Food Security and Conflict Narratives in the Middle East,” in Global Environment, Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2014, 490-516
  •  “Mining Strategies in the Middle East and North Africa,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 35, Issue 6, 2014, 939-957
  •  “The Governance of Gulf Agro-Investments,” in Globalizations, Vol. 10, Issue 1, Special Issue: Governing the Global Land Grab, 2013, 87-104
  •  “Arab Food, Water and the Big Landgrab that Wasn’t,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 18, Issue 1 (Fall/ Winter 2011), 119-132
  • “U.S.-Arab Economic Relations and the Obama Administration,” (with Nader Habibi), Middle East Brief No. 34, February 2009, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University
  • GCC Stock Markets: Managing the Crisis,Gulf Papers (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2007)
  • “The Atlantic Trade of Agricultural and Mineral Commodities,” in German Marshal Fund of the United States (GFMUS) and OCP Policy Center, Atlantic Currents. An Annual Report on Wider Atlantic Perspectives and Patterns (Washington D.C.; Rabat, October 2014) 33-49
  • “Historic Food Regimes and the Middle East,” in Zahra Babar and Suzi Mirgani (eds.) Food Security in the Middle East (London: Hurst and New York: Oxford University Press 2014)
  •  “The Global Food Crisis and the Gulf’s Quest for Africa’s Agricultural Potential,” in Tony Allan, Martin Keulertz, Suvi Sojamo, Jeroen Warner (ed.), Handbook of Land and Water Grabs in Africa: Foreign Direct Investments and Food and Water Security (London, New York: Routledge 2012)
  •  “Oil, the Dollar and the Stability of the International Financial System,” in Robert Looney (ed.), Handbook of Oil Politics (London, New York: Routledge, 2012)
  •  “The Domestic Challenges in the Saudi Energy Market and Their Regional and Geopolitical Implications,” Norwegian Peacebuiliding Resource Center (NOREF), Policy Brief, 29 November, 2013 
  • “Syria Under Stress: Did Drought Trigger the Crisis in Syria?” Footnote1, 12 September 2013 (with Jeannie Sowers and John Waterbury) 
  •  “Gulf Food Security: Strategic Concerns, Nutrition and the Necessity to Trade, IFPRI- Arab Spatial, Arab Food and Nutrition Security Blog, 23 February 2015
  •  “Egypt: Return of the Deep State,” openDemocracy, 20 January 2014
  •  “Mirage in the Desert: The Myth of Africa’s Land Grab,” CNN, July 9, 2012
  •  “How To Lower the Price of Oil. The Road to Cheaper Gas at the Pump Runs through Riyadh,” Foreign Policy, April 18, 2012 (with Bernard Haykel and Giacomo Luciani)
  •  “Bahrain’s Oil Dependence,” (in German, Bahrain hängt am Tropf), Neue Züricher Zeitung, March 1, 2011
  •  “Revisit Investment Strategy,”Financial Times, July 22, 2009
  •  “Away from Oil, Onwards to Stuttgart (in German, Weg vom Öl, Auf nach Stuttgart), Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 25, 2009
  •  “Gulf Food Security Needs Delicate Diplomacy,” Financial Times, March 4, 2009
  •  “Don’t Believe the Dubai Hype, Good or Bad,” Forbes, February 24, 2009