How Long will ISIS Last Economically? – Lunch & Discussion with Eckart Woertz

The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) is not a mere terror organization. It wants to be a “state.” As such it needs money, but its economy is unsustainable. The talk gives an overview of ISIS funding sources such as oil, looting, ransom, foreign donations, agriculture and various forms of taxation. It analyzes what can be done by Europe and the U.S. to hurt the organization economically.

Eckart Woertz is senior research fellow at CIDOB, the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, scientific advisor to the Kuwait Chair at Sciences Po in Paris and teaches at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). Formerly he was a visiting fellow at Princeton University, director of economic studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai and worked for banks in Germany and the United Arab Emirates. He is author of Oil for Food (Oxford University Press 2013) and has published numerous journal articles on development issues in the Middle East. He is on the editorial boards of Food Security and the Journal of Arabian Studies and holds a PhD in economics from Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nuremberg.