Anna Jacobs

Anna Jacobs

Senior Analyst, Gulf states
Doha, Qatar

Crisis Group Role

As Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for the Gulf states, Anna Jacobs covers the foreign policies of the Gulf Cooperation Council states, with a focus on regional security and conflict mitigation efforts in the Gulf region and in Africa.

Professional Background

Anna has been living and working as a foreign policy researcher in the Middle East since 2011. She specialises in the foreign policies of Gulf Arab states, with a focus on the Gulf region and Africa. Anna is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) where she has written on Gulf states foreign policies in Africa and the Mediterranean region. Her work has been published by the Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Al Sharq Strategic Research, and elsewhere.

Prior to joining Crisis Group in July 2022, Anna worked as a senior political officer focusing on Track 2 dialogues in the Gulf region for The Shaikh Group. She also worked as the Senior Research Assistant at the Brookings Doha Center, as the Academic Director for the SIT Study Abroad journalism program in Morocco, as a lecturer in political economy and media at Rabat’s Ecole de Gouvernance et d’Economie, and as a political risk consultant.

She received a Master of Philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford where she specialised in political economy, foreign policy, and Arabic. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Areas of Expertise

  • Foreign policies of the Gulf states
  • Gulf and Red Sea regional security
  • International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa 

Languages

  • French
  • Arabic

In The News

13 Oct 2023
Until political drivers of conflict ... start to be seriously addressed [in the Middle East], it will be difficult for regional stability to take hold in a serious way. The New York Times

Anna Jacobs

Senior Analyst, Gulf states
24 Aug 2023
Gulf countries are diversifying their political and economic relations as the world order becomes increasingly multipolar. Middle East Eye

Anna Jacobs

Senior Analyst, Gulf states
24 Aug 2023
[Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt] are focused on balancing and maintaining ties with multiple powers, not picking sides and getting wrapped up in a greater power competit... Bloomberg

Anna Jacobs

Senior Analyst, Gulf states
18 Aug 2023
The Saudi leadership is … aware of its domestic audience and the continuing importance of the Palestinian issue among the Saudi population and throughout the Arab world. DW

Anna Jacobs

Senior Analyst, Gulf states
17 Aug 2023
Saudi-Iran rapprochement is still in its early phases, and it’s still very unclear how the two sides will address their many points of friction. Al Jazeera

Anna Jacobs

Senior Analyst, Gulf states

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