WASHINGTON // The UAE’s ambassador to Washington has called on regional governments to “get serious” about stopping the flow of funding to extremist groups.
“Promises of new laws are not enough, there must be aggressive enforcement, charitable fund-raising must be monitored, money flows must be examined and exposed,” Yousef Al Otaiba said at an event hosted by the embassy to launch a fellowship programme endowed by the UAE at the Harvard Kennedy School.
“Over the long term, disrupting their funding will do more to slow down extremists than any amount of airstrikes,” Mr Al Otaiba said.
Last week, the United Nations General Assembly was dominated by the threat of ISIL, with Barack Obama working to gain more support for the US-led campaign against the militants in Iraq and Syria.
Apart from military action, central themes of the assembly were how to cut private funding for ISIL as well as how to prevent extremists from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere from travelling to Syria and Iraq to join militant groups.
The UN Security Council passed a binding resolution that forces countries to pass laws addressing the foreign-fighter issue.
At the embassy event on Friday, Mr Al Otaiba said the UAE welcomes “president Obama’s leadership to restrict the recruitment and movements of foreign fighters. Encouraging nations to adopt new laws is the first step, rigorous enforcement is the next.”
As combating ISIL has come to the fore of several countries’ foreign policy priorities, a greater focus has been paid to the group’s sources of money.
Analysts say the group generates the majority of its funds through selling oil, extortion, smuggling, kidnapping and other means, however a smaller but significant portion comes from private donors in the Gulf.
The US Treasury Department has singled out Qatar and Kuwait for having weaknesses in this regard, despite recent laws passed to address the problem.
A State Department report released in April found that in 2013 Qatari authorities had not designated any terrorist fund-raisers, and only reported one suspicious transaction.
Qatar’s leader, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, told CNN that “we have strong laws against funding terrorist groups”. But, he said, “there [are] differences between some countries, of who are the terrorists and who are the, maybe, Islamist groups, but we don’t consider them as terrorists”.
Last week, the US Treasury designated a number of alleged terrorist fund-raisers working in Kuwait and Qatar, including one, known as Tariq Al Tunisi, who is said to have, in September 2013, “arranged for ISIL to receive approximately $2 million from a Qatar-based ISIL financial facilitator” for military operations, according to a Treasury statement. The statement did not name the ISIL fund-raiser.
“This is a positive step,” Mr Al Otaiba said of the latest designations. “And we hope to see more like it.”
Mr Al Otaiba said providing “alternatives” to extremism is also key. That “means building more inclusive, forward-looking, and efficient governments and the people to lead”.
He said the relationship with Harvard would help foster a new generation in the Middle East that “is the type of leadership we need to create”.
The Emirates Leadership Initiative was created at Harvard Kennedy School with a gift of $15 million from the UAE, and will last five years.
The initiative will allow annual fellowships for up to 10 graduate students from the UAE and other Arab countries as well as research fellowships for pre- and postdoctoral students.
The initiative will also provide for trips by Kennedy School students, faculty and administrators to the UAE and the region.
The programme will be co-directed by David Gergen, a Kennedy School professor and former White House adviser, and Nicholas Burns, a former senior US diplomat and National Security Council official now with the Kennedy School.
One of the six 2014 fellows selected by the Kennedy School is Khaled Kteily, 25, a Palestinian-Lebanese who came to the school after working as a business consultant in Canada.
Before that he worked for the UN on Palestinian refugee issues in the Levant.
As extremist violence, war and political polarisation engulf the Middle East and North Africa, Mr Kteily says he wants to now pursue a public-sector career in the region after his time at the Kennedy School.
“My sense with the fellowship is that they want people who believe in the Arab world, who have a lot of belief in what it can accomplish,” Mr Kteily said.
Amina Taher, 30, an Emirati from Dubai, took a sabbatical from her position in media relations at Etihad after she won a fellowship.
Her goal is to help public education reform in the UAE.
“How can we create more women leaders in the country who can have a better impact on education and different industries?” she said. She said her goal was to improve education for Emirati women so that they can fill leadership posts in government.
tkhan@thenational.ae
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The flights
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The tours
English-speaking guided tours of Ohrid town and the surrounding area are organised by Cultura 365; these cost €90 (Dh386) for a one-day trip including driver and guide and €100 a day (Dh429) for two people.
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Villa St Sofija in the old town of Ohrid, twin room from $54 (Dh198) a night.
St Naum Monastery, on the lake 30km south of Ohrid town, has updated its pilgrims' quarters into a modern 3-star hotel, with rooms overlooking the monastery courtyard and lake. Double room from $60 (Dh 220) a night.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Votes
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Ashraf Ghani: 923,592 votes
Abdullah Abdullah: 720,841 votes
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Globalization and its Discontents Revisited
Joseph E. Stiglitz
W. W. Norton & Company
