A report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Program, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and ESCWA confirmed that levels of hunger and malnutrition have reached critical levels in the Arab region, especially after the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic hindered 19 The war in Ukraine has access to basic foods.
The report “Near East and North Africa – Regional Overview of the State of Food Security and Nutrition 2022: Trade as an Enabler of Food Security and Nutrition” examines the state of food security and nutrition in the Arab region, the Near East and North Africa.
The report, whose main findings were published yesterday at a special event in Cairo, discusses how international trade can enhance food security and nutrition in a region suffering from a range of external shocks. Ultimately, the report makes recommendations on how the region can improve agri-food systems to provide food security and adequate nutrition for all, be economically sustainable, inclusive and have a positive impact on climate and the environment.
The report, “Near East and North Africa – Regional Overview of the State of Food Security and Nutrition 2022: Trade as an Enabler of Food Security and Nutrition,” looks at the state of regional food security and provides analyzes and recommendations on how to mitigate the situation. The report reveals that an estimated 53.9 million people experienced severe food insecurity in the Arab region in 2021, an increase of 55 percent since 2010, and an increase of 5 million over the previous year.
The report warned that moderate or severe food insecurity continued its upward trend, negatively affecting an estimated 154.3 million people in 2021, an increase of 11.6 million people from the previous year. In addition, the report indicated that more than half of the population of Arab countries, or 162.7 million people, could not afford to adopt a healthy diet in 2020. The cost of adopting a healthy diet has been increasing in the Arab region every year since 2017, as the cost reached in 2020 to $3.47 per person per day. The Arab region continues to suffer from multiple forms of malnutrition.
Although the prevalence of stunting in the region (20.5 percent), which affects one in five children under the age of five, was lower than the global average, the report notes that the prevalence of wasting in the region (7.8 percent) was higher than world average (6.7 per cent). The prevalence of overweight among children under the age of five was 10.7 percent in 2020. The report says that the latest available estimates show that 28.8 percent of the adult population (18 years and over) in the Arab region suffers from obesity, and this percentage is more than double the global average.
Although the Arab region was not already on the right path required to achieve the two goals of the Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating hunger and improving nutrition, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated the situation by creating disruptions in supply chains and increasing the prices of grains, fertilizers and energy. Since the region is highly dependent on imported food to meet its food security requirements, these two crises affected Arab countries more than other countries, and exacerbated food insecurity and malnutrition in the region. In addition to these global events, other factors such as climate change, conflict and structural issues such as poverty are adding to the burden of achieving food security and improving nutrition in the region. Therefore, UN partners concluded that the Arab region is unlikely to achieve SDG 2 of ending hunger by 2030.
The regional report highlights trade as a key enabler to ensure that all four dimensions of food security and nutrition (availability, access, utilization and stability) are met by increasing the quantity and diversity of food and reducing its price for net food importers. However, most of the countries in the region have not integrated trade into food security policies, therefore, relevant policies must be redesigned accordingly, and agri-food systems in the region must be transformed to make them more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
The report recommends that policy makers focus on policies that facilitate food trade such as reducing trade barriers, establishing new free trade areas, embracing digital technologies, reducing non-tariff barriers, harmonizing regulatory practices, strengthening governance, and enhancing cooperation and coordination between countries and the international community. The report also highlights the fact that international trade is not only important for the availability of food, but also plays a major role in promoting technology through the transfer of knowledge that can contribute to increasing productivity, improving job opportunities and developing incomes.
The report calls on Arab countries to benefit from intra-trade and rely more on each other’s capabilities, as regional trade helps reduce food shortages during normal agricultural production cycles, and provides an important mechanism for addressing production shortages or supply chain disruptions resulting from the negative and unexpected effects of global events. .
Achieving the ambitious development agenda set out in the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025 requires urgent action to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by ensuring sufficient availability of safe, nutritious and affordable food for all. Therefore, the Arab region must improve its agro-food systems to ensure food security and adequate nutrition for all, and to be economically sustainable, inclusive and have a positive impact on the climate and the environment.
An optimistic view of the food and nutrition situation in the Arab region
Under the title “An Optimistic View of the Food and Nutrition Situation in the Arab Region”, Abdelhakim Al-Waer, Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, stressed that the Arab region is witnessing unprecedented challenges in its efforts to eradicate hunger and all forms of malnutrition. and ensuring universal access to adequate and affordable healthy diets.
He added: The strange thing is that the Arab region has no “cow or camel” with regard to most of the causes of these challenges, but their consequences have burdened the peoples of the region and put their governments in front of increasing responsibilities that require them to strive with all their capabilities to ensure a minimum level of food security by providing subsidies and other measures. Subsidies, which in turn have become a burden on local politics due to financial difficulties.
Al-Waer pointed out that the recent crises, especially the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war and the repercussions of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the negative effects of climate change, have strained agricultural food systems and disrupted many food supply chains around the world. The Arab region was not immune from this, but rather it was one of the most affected regions around the world, due to its heavy reliance on importing its food from global markets and the Black Sea region.
Al-Waer says: According to the indicators of the UN report, “A regional overview of the state of food security and nutrition in the Near East and North Africa region for the year 2022,” which was recently issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in cooperation with IFAD, ESCWA, UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization, the Arab region has acquired 7.6 percent of the world’s total agricultural imports in 2020.
Countries in the Near East and North Africa are among the world’s largest importers of grains, and more than 50 percent of the calories required come from imported food.
Al-Waer believes that the report highlighted the extent of the crisis that the region is exposed to as a result of these repercussions, as the number of people who suffered from undernourishment in the region reached 54.3 million in 2021, or the equivalent of 12.2 percent of the total population of the region. This means an increase of 55 percent from the figures recorded in 2010, that is, before the region was hit by major tremors resulting from the wave of conflicts and popular revolutions. The number of severely food insecure people in 2021 is estimated at 53.9 million, an increase of 5 million from the previous year. Rates of moderate or severe food insecurity continued to rise, negatively affecting an estimated 154.3 million people in 2021, an increase of 11.6 million people from 2020. The number of people experiencing food insecurity has increased steadily since 2014, with an estimated The proportion of people who experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021 is about 34.7 percent of the total population of the region. More than half of the population in the Arab region was unable to secure enough healthy food.
Al-Waer added: At first glance, it appears from these indicators and numbers that the Arab region is unlikely to succeed in achieving the second sustainable development goal of eliminating hunger by 2030. Not to mention the presence of many other challenges that include climate change, conflicts, disasters, and structural problems such as poverty and inequality. However, despite these alarming numbers, there is still an opportunity to change this reality and try to overcome these crises and challenges and return to the right track towards achieving food and nutrition goals, by bringing about a transformation in the food and agricultural systems of the countries of the region so that they are more comprehensive, sustainable and resilient, which is what A number of countries in the region have begun to realize this and seek to prepare their food and agricultural systems for this transformation through several sustainable agricultural and rural development strategies.
According to Al-Waez: It should be the beginning of changing the current reality by promoting and disseminating the knowledge and technology necessary for that, supporting the necessary frameworks, such as financing, and enhancing integration between the countries of the region and intra-trade in a way that reduces the food import bill, while benefiting from local resources in the Arab countries and employing them in this way. Optimum, which requires strategic investment in all of these axes, along with political will at a high level, and the development of clear and proven policies.
Al-Waer concluded that seeking to reduce the food import bill should not lead us to overlook the importance of trade to ensure the achievement of the four dimensions of food security and nutrition: availability, access, use, and stability. Trade can increase the quantity and variety of foodstuffs and reduce their prices in food-importing countries. So international trade is essential to a diverse and healthy diet in the region.
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