Dear Colleague,
This week, the team behind the Rihla Initiative for Green Economic Growth was in Abu Dhabi for the inaugural Rihla Summit.
Mehran Haghirian, Shakhlo Kamaladinova, Vuyiswa Hlongwane, Nguyen Dang Dao, Imad Ahmed, Mohamed El Dahshan, and yours truly, helping bring the program to life, supported by Khuzama Wardeh from afar.
The landmark summit brought together over 150 participants, including Rihla Council Members, experts, practitioners, and investors from 6 regions and 60 countries to exchange perspectives and develop a policy agenda and implementation approaches for Gulf green investment.
Best regards,
Layla Saghafian
Engagement Coordinator
Events
The Rihla Summit was held in partnership with the prestigious Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and took place at the academy’s campus in Abu Dhabi.
Here are several highlights from the inaugural Rihla Summit:
Moving from policy to implementation: The agenda included sessions exploring how Gulf climate finance can support green industrialization, economic diversification, resilient infrastructure, and quality employment.
Launching new tools to support the ecosystem: The summit marked the launch of the initiative’s next phase which will spearhead the development of new tools including a stakeholder mapping database and a first-of-its-kind Gulf green investment tracker.
Building cooperation beyond the summit: The discussions identified opportunities for new partnerships and long-term collaboration among participating organizations from the Gulf and Global South.
Executive education in climate finance: Participants will continue the program through a dedicated Executive Training Day on 30 September organized in partnership with Global Climate Finance Centre.
The summit represented an important milestone for the Rihla Initiative and the culmination of two years of work by the team. We look forward to building on these discussions as the initiative enters its next phase.
External Publications
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj - London Review of Books - 29 September
Media Engagements
This week, the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation expertise was featured across English, Arabic, Italian, and German-language media, reflecting the growing international reach of our work.
Senior Fellow Khalifa Al-Suwaidi was interviewed for the Al-Raqib Podcast about how the war has reshaped Gulf stability. The interview has already generated over 500,000 views on YouTube.
An article by Esfandyar and Policy Fellow Josefine Petrick on the effects of Trump’s new aviation sanctions on Iran’s medical supply chains was referenced extensively by the Financial Times and Italy’s HuffPost. Esfandyar’s analysis was also featured by the Italian news agency AGI and Germany’s Tagesspiegel.
Mehran was interviewed for an article in Arab News on Iran’s growing economic pressure and whether the U.S. naval blockade is leading Tehran to seek renewed diplomacy.
Finally, Analyst Ezana Tedla was interviewed for an Al Jazeera article about the risks Iran faces as it redirects trade from its blockaded southern ports toward the Caspian Sea.
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