HBKU’s CPP discusses need to strengthen Arab families amid pandemic 10 Apr 2021 - 9:53 The Peninsula Doha: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families, women, and children in the Arab region was the focus of an online seminar jointly organised by Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)’s College of Public Policy (CPP), the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University, and the Faculty of Social Sciences, Kuwait University. Academics, researchers, and advocates of family and children’s issues from Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt discussed the findings of data collected in 20 Arab countries under the global ‘COVID-19 Family Life Research Study’ initiated at CPP and carried out between March and October 2020. The cross-cultural study surveyed families in 72 countries to examine the challenges they faced during the pandemic. The seminar’s expert panel highlighted striking aspects of the study pertaining to different regions in the Arab world.