Policy Network
for Transitions
A network of researchers, practitioners, and policy actors committed to long-term strategic thinking across disciplines and borders.
The Policy Network for Transitions (PNT) was created in response to the profound transformations reshaping North Africa and the global order. Over the past decade, a convergence of challenges has emerged in North Africa, the effect of which was to redefine the conditions under which states and societies operate. Climate change, demographic shifts, energy transition, geopolitical fragmentation, technological disruption, and the rise of populism are no longer distant trends; they are lived realities shaping political choices and economic trajectories.
The experience of the Arab uprisings revealed both the depth of popular demands for change and the fragility of the political, economic, and institutional structures meant to respond to them. While much attention has been devoted to democratic backsliding and authoritarian restoration, the most enduring consequence of this period has been the erosion of strategic autonomy. Many states continue to struggle to define long-term visions: in the face of complex problems, policymakers lean on short-term crisis management, external support, or narrow technocratic solutions.
The challenges standing before North Africa are intensifying as the global order itself now enters a period of transition. The fragmentation of globalization, the rise of regional powers, and the growing interdependence between climate, security, and development are narrowing policy spaces while increasing uncertainty. In this context, reacting to crises is no longer sufficient. Planning and proactive strategic thinking has become a necessity.
PNT is founded on the conviction that transitions are not imposed choices but unavoidable challenges. The central question facing North African societies today is not whether transition will occur: it is whether states and societies possess the strategic capacity to govern the challenges that transition presents. By defining priorities, managing trade-offs, and articulating long-term trajectories aligned with social and political realities, PNT believes a better path forward can be found.
North Africa as a Strategic Space
The Policy Network for Transitions builds on extensive experience in North Africa, using the region as a lens through which to engage wider transnational challenges spanning the Mediterranean, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. We approach North Africa not as a collection of isolated national cases, but as an integrated geography shaped by shared histories, deep interdependencies, and common vulnerabilities. The region occupies a pivotal position at the intersection of African and European dynamics, structured by flows of energy, trade, migration, capital, security, and ideas.
Europe's energy transition, Africa's demographic transformation, the reshaping of global value chains, and evolving migration and security regimes all converge in North Africa. These dynamics generate both constraints and opportunities that no country in the region can address alone. Fragmented national responses are increasingly inadequate to challenges that are regional and transnational in nature.
Understanding North Africa as a strategic space requires a regional perspective that acknowledges interdependence while engaging seriously with questions of sovereignty, development, and collective positioning in a changing world. It also requires the adoption of a holistic approach, one that can grasp how climate policy, economic transformation, social justice, and geopolitical strategy come together in the region.
PNT seeks to contribute to this regional reflection by fostering cross-border dialogue, comparative research, and networks of actors capable of thinking collectively about North Africa's place in the world. By linking perspectives from North Africa, Europe, and the rest of Africa, PNT aims to encourage a more integrated understanding of the region's challenges and opportunities.
A Network for Strategic Reflection
The Policy Network for Transitions is a network by design. It brings together researchers, practitioners, and policy actors committed to long-term strategic thinking across disciplines and borders. PNT is neither a think tank, consultancy, nor a political organization. Its role is to host and structure strategic reflection on the multiple transitions shaping North Africa.
Rather than offering ready-made solutions or technical blueprints, PNT works to reconnect political considerations back into technical debates. It encourages serious engagement with questions of trade-offs, sequencing, and long-term choices, and aims to strengthen strategic capacities within societies and institutions.
Guided by values of freedom, justice, accountability, and popular sovereignty, the Policy Network for Transitions aspires to contribute to the reconstruction of strategic thinking in North Africa. In an era defined by uncertainty, interdependence, and rapid transformation, building capacities for strategic deliberation is imperative.
In an era defined by uncertainty, interdependence, and rapid transformation, the ability to think strategically is not optional — it is essential.
