Middle East and North Africa

Lore & Background

The term MENA emerged as a regional identifier used in academia, military planning, disaster relief, media planning, and business writing. It brings together most of the Arab League and variously includes their neighbors, such as Iran, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, the Caucasian countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malta, and a few others. The region has no standardized definition; different organizations define it as consisting of different territories, or do not define it as a region at all. For example, the United Nations has no MENA region among its Regional Groups or in its geoscheme, though some UN agencies and programmes define the MENA region, but their definitions may contradict each other. Other organizations, such as UNHCR, FAO, UNAIDS, and UNICEF, have published varying lists of MENA countries, sometimes including Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan, or excluding others. Historians Michael Dumper and Bruce Stanley defined the region as stretching from Morocco to Iran and from Turkey to the Horn of Africa, including the 22 countries of the Arab League, Turkey, Israel, Iran, and Cyprus, while noting how controversial and problematic this definition is. Due to the geographic ambiguity and Eurocentric nature of the term 'Middle East', some prefer terms like SWANA, WANA, or NAWA, especially in sciences such as agriculture and climatology, and usage of WANA has been advanced by postcolonial studies.

Reader's Guide

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is significant as a flexible regional grouping that serves multiple practical purposes across academia, policy, business, and humanitarian work. Its lack of a standardized definition reflects the political, cultural, and geographic complexities of the area it attempts to describe. Different organizations—such as the World Bank, UNHCR, FAO, UNAIDS, UNICEF, and the IMF—have each produced their own lists of MENA countries, which sometimes include Iran, Israel, Turkey, Malta, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, or Mauritania, and sometimes exclude them. This variability means that any use of the term requires careful attention to the specific definition being employed. The region shares cultural, economic, and environmental similarities, including that some of the most extreme impacts of climate change will be felt in MENA. Related terms like MENASA, MENAP, and MENAT extend the grouping further into South Asia or explicitly include Turkey. The term WANA (West Asia and North Africa) is also used, particularly in postcolonial studies and in agricultural research, with ICARDA defining a WANA region of 25 to 27 countries. Ultimately, MENA is a pragmatic but contested construct that highlights the challenges of regional classification in a diverse and geopolitically sensitive area.

Did You Know?

• The term MENA has no standardized definition; different organizations define the region as consisting of different territories.
• Some prefer the term WANA (West Asia and North Africa) due to the geographic ambiguity and Eurocentric nature of the term 'Middle East'.