Today multi- and bilateral relations between the Mena region and the west are on track. The trade relations between the two sides are on a very positive path. The west has a highly innovative economy and wealth of knowledge and skills to share. Also, the west now show an important involvement in many projects internationally. And with the new context of recession, they tend to expand their business opportunities. In the same vein, the Mena has an open economy that depends heavily on foreign markets.

We are currently witnessing a shared desire to create a partnership between the two worlds in the private and public sectors, to strengthen trade, to enable institutional twinning and to develop investment between the two worlds. Despite this, the economic relations including trade exchanges are still very weak between the Mena region and the west.

The links between the Mena region and the west are not only economic. The social aspect is particularly important in these relationships. The point is that both communities still face problems when it comes to social cohesion. Crimes among the youth, domestic violence, radicalization, extremism, racism, are daily-lived phenomena, which need to be overcome. Dialogue and tolerance still need to be encouraged. Yet, the recent political changes do not help improving the relations between Muslims and Non-Muslims. There are now new trends which are very controversial and which create a real social challenge. In fact, there is a culture of fear, dislike, and mutual distrust growing between Muslims and non-Muslims and very few of the policies, projects or programs to bridge the divide have come anywhere close to success.

In the fields of culture and arts, many efforts have been realized. We can see nowadays many exchanges between the youth of the two communities. There are projects such as exhibitions, which show the desire of sharing cultural references. Yet those exchanges are not enough. In fact, kids have no easy access to the references of their own culture, which is still portrayed through stereotypes and preconceived ideas promoted by the mainstream media. The language is also a big barrier to these exchanges but many things have to be done to share talents and knowledge on the fields of theatre, music, dance, painting, writing etc.

We have set up Iamena because of the history between the Mena region and the west and all the economic, social and cultural challenges we have talked about above. But we are organizing the forum also because of many global issues that concern the East and the West in general and which concern many minorities in The west and need to be discussed such as: sustainability, bridging cultures, peace in the World, intercultural understanding, fighting against extremism, and so on.