MENA is a large region of the world consisting of the Middle East and North Africa. Countries included are not standardized but generally include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Facts about the area
These countries in this region has an estimated 315 million people. These regions contain large deposits of oil and gas. This region, according to the Oil and Gas Journal in 2009, contains 60% of the world's oil reserves or about 810.98 BILLION barrels of oil and 45% of the world's natural gas reserves.
There has been many conflicts since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, most notably the Iraq War, the Syrian Civil War, the Libyan Civil War, and the Yemeni Civil War.
Still, with the conflict, this region has seen foreign direct investment over the years with a massive spike in 2004 to 2007 but is slowly dropping off again.
Sources:
World Bank - MENA
Wikipedia - MENA
Wikipedia - Ottoman Empire
The differences among and between these nations are considerable too. It will be great reading your insights regarding all of them!
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