The diplomatic activity of the State of Qatar in North Africa in 2013-2025: between economic, cooperation and political influence

Abstract

During the period from 2013 to 2025, the State of Qatar consolidated its position as one of the most agile actors in North Africa, where significant financial resources, a well-developed media infrastructure, and a flexible diplomatic doctrine have enabled the formation of a comprehensive model of regional presence based on the strategic synergy of economic penetration, mediation initiatives, and soft power tools in the context of profound post-revolutionary transformations, political crises, and competitive dynamics with leading regional powers. The evolution of the Qatari paradigm from initial focused support for political Islam movements and post—revolutionary processes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt to a pragmatic, institutionally mature strategy after the blockade of 2017-2021 was reflected in the steady growth of foreign direct investment by 2.33 times — from 4.27 to 9.93 billion US dollars, accounting for 14-17% of the emirate's external portfolio, dominated by Algeria due to joint metallurgical and gas projects, pronounced volatility in Egypt, correlated with political shifts from a sharp decline after the removal of Morsi to normalization and a threefold increase in investments after the Al Ula agreements, stable annual growth of 8.9% in Tunisia as a key site of Maghreb influence, more than three times the expansion of presence in Morocco and uneven, conflict-a dependent trajectory in Sudan. These investment flows, mainly focused on energy, telecommunications, the banking sector and infrastructure, are complemented by humanitarian and financial assistance, which has exceeded $ 20 billion over twelve years, with a pronounced politicized distribution: extraordinary tranches in Egypt in 2013-2016, steady growth in Libya (average annual growth of about 37.7%, totaling over 5.2 billion)., significant volumes in Sudan during the crisis of 2023-2025 and relatively modest figures in stable Algeria and Morocco, where the investment logic of long term economic dependence prevails. Mediation activity, showing an average score of 6.52 points, reaches its maximum effectiveness in the Egyptian-Qatari contacts on Hamas (8.4), the Darfur process (7.2) and the Tunisian political dialogue (7.3), contrasting with more limited results in the Libyan crisis (6.7) and the Algerian Moroccan contradictions (3.7), which underlines Doha's ability Establish and maintain a multi-channel dialogue simultaneously with Islamist movements, secular elites, military structures and Western governments on the platforms of the League of Arab States, the African Union and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The media, cultural, and educational dimension enhances the structural depth of influence through Al Jazeera's audience, which reaches approximately 55 million people in the region, with peak figures in Egypt (18.63 million) and Algeria (12.47 million), the distribution of over 1,300 annual scholarships, the implementation of 92 joint educational programs, and the establishment of 21 cultural centers that form a sustainable infrastructure for ideological influence and the training of regional elites. In a competitive environment with the United Arab Emirates (a combined economic output of $59.02 billion), Turkey ($55.91 billion), Saudi Arabia ($44.39 billion), and Iran ($7.86 billion), Qatar occupies a specific niche as a highly maneuverable actor with a balanced economic presence of $27.14 billion and a direct investment-to-trade ratio of 0.67, which distinguishes its model from the Turkish model, which is heavily focused on trade, and the Emirati model, which is heavily focused on investment. The presented material allows us to establish the main content of the article, which reveals quantitative correlations between financial flows, political effectiveness, and adaptive multi-vectorality as distinctive features of the diplomatic maturity of a small state, determine its relevance for analyzing the mechanisms of soft power and regional competition in the context of the geopolitical turbulence of the post-Arab world, and make an informed decision about accessing the full text for specialists in international relations and African studies.