DUBAI: Across the Arab world, climate change is increasingly being felt through shrinking water supplies, damaged crops and rising food prices. Experts warn that a region already among the world’s most water-stressed is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate-driven hunger and humanitarian crises.
“The Arab world is the most water-scarce region in the world when it comes to per capita availability of fresh water,” Ahmad Mukhtar, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization coordinator for GCC states, told Arab News. “We are a region with very little arable land, less than 5 percent, and we are experiencing some of the highest desertification.”
In the Arab region, the FAO works with local governments and communities to implement sustainable water-management techniques while building policy frameworks to enhance agricultural yield, safeguard natural resources, and shield vulnerable populations from climate-driven food shocks.
The Arab world is heavily reliant on food imports, with the FAO estimating that they could account for nearly two-thirds of food consumption in the region by 2031. (Shuterstock)
As agriculture accounts for the vast majority of local freshwater withdrawals, diminishing supplies leave farming communities exceptionally vulnerable, forcing an unsustainable reliance on volatile global food import markets. Mukhtar said this is being exacerbated by climate change.
