The initiative was started by Eli Bar-On, an Israeli former lawyer, policymaker and businessman who now works full-time on regional cooperation and peace-building efforts.
During a recent visit to London, Bar-On told the JC that the region faces pressures that do not pause for war: climate change, water scarcity, uneven economic development and one of the youngest populations in the world. He believes the region’s long-term challenges demand collaboration beyond the political sphere.
What began as a side project “quickly became a seven-day-a-week project,” that now sees him constantly on the move. “I live on planes. Sometimes I wake up at night and am not sure where I am.”
Mena 2050 focusses on 20 policy areas, including healthcare, climate change, food and water security, energy transition and education. According to Bar-On, the Middle East and North Africa is one of the least integrated regions in the world, leaving countries poorly equipped to address shared risks.
Eli Bar-On says his views of peace and cooperation are not utopian[Missing Credit]
“Political circumstances change all the time,” he says. “But the idea that people can work together does not.
“Iran has tensions now with Israel, and other countries in the region. But in any future scenario, I cannot imagine Iran not being integrated into the region. So it has to be included in the conversation now because it has a lot to offer to the region and a lot to gain from the region.”
Iranians involved in the Mena network currently live outside the Islamic Republic, where engagement with Israelis or regional initiatives would carry enormous risk.
Qatar, too, he believes, has a role to play.
“Qatar could be a great partner to all these regional efforts,” he says. On his many visits to the Gulf monarchy, he says: “I have disagreements with them on various areas and I’m engaging with them to discuss this. But eventually I think they can also see what the benefit in the long term is of becoming part of a stable, prosperous, peaceful region.”
Launched with around 20 participants, Mena 2050 has grown over five years to more than 300 members spanning almost every country in the region. Participants include scientists, business leaders and policy experts. Some are named; others are not.
The initiative makes a point of stating it is “neutral”. It does not seek to mediate conflicts or substitute diplomacy, but focusses on practical cooperation among professionals who expect to share a future.
Israel, Bar-On says, should not be a “start-up nation” alone, but part of a “start-up region.”
That logic was tested by the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, which came amid momentum towards normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“The attack of October 7 was not only an attack on Israel,” Bar-On said. “It was an attack on this new idea that was gaining ground in the region, that regional cooperation is possible, that it could bring stability and prosperity to the region. This idea was rejected by radical forces. But they are now on the losing side.”
Rather than slowing down, he says, the network has continued to grow since October 7 2023.
Bar-On has three children in Israel, and he frames much of his work in terms of the future they will inherit. “If you’re not being constructive, you’re being useless,” he says, describing a mindset shaped by the region’s volatility and Jewish history.
“This has been the most challenging period since the Holocaust. But we as a people have always found ways of tackling challenges.
“Many of us felt very lonely. But we have many friends around the world who support us and who believe we have a place in the region and the world and want to work with us. We just need to invest in the effort.”
US President Donald Trump joins President of Egypt Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and other regional and European leaders for a Middle East peace summit at the Sharm El Sheikh International Congress Center on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. (Getty Images)Getty Images
Bar-On often frames Israel’s place in the region using both geography and ancestry. Despite its location at the heart of the Middle East, Israel functions in many ways as an island.
“Israel should not be looked at as a foreign enclave in the region, like an extension of Europe,” he says. “In reality, most Israelis have roots in the Arab and Muslim world.”
Bar-On’s parents were expelled from Iraq in the early 1950s. Pointing to Israel’s demography, he goes on: “You have in Israel representation from more Arab and Muslim countries than you will find in most Arab countries.
“People in the Middle East and North Africa should understand that the Jews living in Israel are indigenous people of the Middle East and North Africa regions. They were kicked out, they were pushed out, they felt unsafe. There are many different reasons, but we are part of this region. We are not invaders. We were not colonialists, and we came to the country that’s always been the homeland of the Jewish people.”
At the same time, he stresses that recognition must be mutual. “The Jews pushed out other people who were on this land, the Palestinians,” he said. “So, if we get to a point where there is understanding on both sides, that each side should accept the other, and we should not allow extremists to dictate every time the trajectory of the region.”
Bar-On argues that economic integration can help bolster this.
Among the projects he highlights is the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, which aims to link India to Europe via Gulf states and Israel using ports, railways, energy infrastructure and digital networks.
“It’s going to be one of the biggest economic corridors in the world,” he says. “It can bring prosperity to all communities across this corridor.” Rather than a single transit route, he describes it as a distributed network. “I’m not seeing it as a straight-line corridor, but rather as a tree with many, many branches, like blood vessels in the body.”
He also points to diplomatic signals he views as encouraging, such as the New York Declaration, a United Nations initiative reaffirming international support for a two-state solution and reconstruction frameworks for Gaza.
Bar-On is careful to say his ideas are not abstract or idealistic. “They are not a utopia – they are very concrete,” he says.
For the participants of Mena 2050, waiting for stability before cooperation has already produced decades of stalemate. Their bet, as a new year begins, is that peace can only come after the groundwork for a better future has been laid.
