Guides: Middle East & North Africa Studies (MENA): Begin Your Research: Background Information

NGO & IGO Website Examples

The World Bank: MENA
The World Bank is an NGO that works "with countries in the Middle East and North Africa to eliminate poverty and promote shared prosperity through strengthening human capital, supporting jobs and economic transformation, advancing gender equity, addressing fragility, and enabling green growth."
World Trade Organization
"The WTO operates the global system of trade rules and helps developing countries build their trade capacity. It also provides a forum for its members to negotiate trade agreements and to resolve the trade problems they face with each other."
The United Nations
The UN's "MENA Section is responsible for the day-to-day work of OHCHR in the MENA region, such as following human rights developments at the national and regional levels, interacting with governments, national human rights institutions (NHRIs), civil society actors and the UN system, and engaging with the international human rights mechanisms."

Digital National Security Archive

The National Security Archive, a nongovernmental entity, curates digital collections of declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews.

You can either search all collections in the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), or search the sub-collections related to the Middle East below. Given the variety of document types in these databases, use the filters in the left-hand column to limit your search to the kinds of materials you're interested in.

Reference Works: Databases, Encyclopedias, and Websites

To learn more about the MENA region, look for background information in encyclopedias, government websites, and NGO websites. Use these sources to begin research topics or to narrow down a research topic in your studies. Background sources can also help you learn the vocabulary used to describe your topic. This new vocabulary will help you with your keyword searches.

Helpful sources for background information include subscription databases and encyclopedias:

Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Contains 100+ dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works full text and searchable.
Coverage: Varies
Full Text: Yes

Europeana
Europeana provides cultural heritage enthusiasts, professionals, teachers, and researchers with access to Europe's digital cultural heritage. Europeana gives you access to millions of items from providing institutions across Europe. Discover artworks, books, music, and videos on art, newspapers, archaeology, fashion, science, sport, and much more.
Encyclopedia Iranica
Encyclopedia Iranica is a resource dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent. It covers all aspects of Iranian history and culture facilitating the whole range of Iranian studies research.
CIA World Factbook
Provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.

Additional Web Sites

Afghanistan: The Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection at the University of Nebraska-Omaha
In 1974, the University Library received Arthur Paul's private collection of Afghanistan materials consisting of some one thousand items in Persian, Pashto and English languages.
Arab American National Museum
Arab Americans have enriched the economic, political and cultural landscape of American life. By bringing the voices and faces of Arab Americans to mainstream audiences, we continue our commitment to dispel misconceptions about Arab Americans and other minorities.
Arab Human Development Reports - United Nations
Arab Human Development Reports (AHDRs) engage institutions and citizens in the Arab countries in global concerns so as to build understanding and consensus around regional and national development priorities. They also identify disadvantaged groups of population and regions and suggest policies, strategies and opportunities for investment to benefit them.
Arab Media and Society
Arab Media and Society is the primary peer-reviewed reference for understanding the role of media in shaping Arab societies and the broader Arab world. Arab Media & Society is published by the Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism in the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo and indexed by Scopus-Elsevier.
Chatham House
Chatham House is a policy institute dedicated to helping governments and societies build a sustainable, secure, prosperous and just world. They deliver their mission through dialogue and research. Chatham House focuses research on different regions of the world, one of which is the Middle East and North Africa. Key Chatham House research areas include Gulf States and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the future of the state, mapping the region’s war economies, the Yemen conflict, Iraq’s reconstruction, and the influence of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
A Chronology of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish Periodicals
Comprehensive chronology of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish periodicals published during the period from 1840 to 1950. Some materials are digitized and accessible online.
Encyclopedia Mythica
Encyclopedia Mythica is an online encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion.The Middle East section consists of hundreds of articles on Islamic, Judaic, Mesopotamian and Persian mythology.
Global Connections (PBS)
This PBS special puts world events in context and provides a timeline of Middle East history since 1900. The site is dated, and AdobeFlash no longer supports the map or media views, however, the site has various themed pages, and focused information on big-picture questions of US policy, religious militancy, roles of women, stereotypes, natural resources and nation-states.
Islamic Heritage Project - Harvard University
Harvard University has cataloged, conserved, and digitized hundreds of Islamic manuscripts, maps, and published texts from Harvard’s renowned library and museum collections to create the Islamic Heritage Project.
New York Public Library Digital Images Galllery
NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
Perry Castaneda Library Map Collection
Large collection of public domain country, city and thematic maps presented as gif or jpeg files, provided by the University of Texas.
The collection is now archived and no longer being updated, as of 2021.
Project on Middle East Political Science
The Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS), is a collaborative network designed to enhance the broader Middle East’s political science field and its engagement with the broader academic discipline, public policy, and the public sphere. POMEPS is based at the Institute for Middle East Studies at the George Washington University and is supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
World Digital Library - UNESCO
The WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.