The Mediterranean Platform is a research, dialogue, and educational programme at the School of Government, Luiss Guido Carli. It offers a space for collective reflection on the opportunities and challenges of the Mediterranean region and promotes informed policymaking and advocacy at the national and transnational levels.
The Platform seeks to nurture a deeper understanding of the region by offering insights into the multifaceted transformation of societies and polities and by addressing long-term trends and dynamics. It builds upon innovative, rigorous and policy-relevant field-based research and active collaborations with researchers, practitioners and policymakers from across the region.
Our key areas of interest include political, socio-economic and security transformations in the Mediterranean space; MENA geopolitics, regional security and diplomacy; the region’s political economy and mega-trends, in particular the governance of natural resources, energy transition and climate change. The Platform is also engaged in future studies and scenario-making for the broader Mediterranean.
Edited by Dr. Dalia Ghanem, Luigi Narbone, Mehari Taddele Maru & Carlo Palleschi.

The recent maritime crisis in the Red Sea has brought this vital global waterway back to the fore. But the region’s destiny is no longer being decided by the distant chess moves of great powers; it is being shaped, right now, by the assertive and competing interests of regional middle powers. Middle Eastern countries (MECs), such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Türkiye, actively rewriting the security and political map of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa (HoA) with a mix of money, diplomacy, and direct military and other forms of intervention. At the same time, the HoA is no longer a passive recipient of MECs’ engagement. Its governments, elites, and local actors have learned to navigate and exploit MECs’ ambitions, using external competition to bolster domestic legitimacy, attract investment, and diversify partnerships.
To understand this critical corridor this book provides the first comprehensive analysis that breaks down the silos between MECs and the HoA. This volume critically examines the interactions between the MECs and the HoA and seeks to align visions and identify concrete steps toward realizing the vision of a Red Sea that, though divided by waters, is united by opportunities.
Co-published by the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, the Mediterranean Platform, and the Pan-African Agenda Institute, this eBook provides the first comprehensive analysis that breaks down the silos between Middle Eastern countries (MECs) and the Horn of Africa (HoA). By bringing perspectives from the Gulf into direct conversation with those from the Horn, it critically examines the interactions between the MECs and the HoA.
25 February 2026
5 February 2026
8 January 2026
2 December 2025
LUISS University, 25/11/2025
21 November 2025
NUPI, 20/11/2025
9 October 2025
8 October 2025
The Mediterranean Platform draws on the work of leading specialists and academic experts to organise public events and provide in-depth multidisciplinary analysis of socio-political, security and economic transformations in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
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Public Events