A rapidly changing world combined with mounting domestic challenges is prompting many Middle East and North African (MENA) countries to rethink their development models and to initiate economic and social reforms. Taking this new momentum as a starting point, this paper uses the concept of Food Security to identify the region's challenges along four major themes: economic growth and incomes, trade and infrastructure, agriculture and water, and health and education. Results show that many of the region's longstanding challenges persist; yet taking immediate action is more urgent in light of the recent, global food, fuel, and financial crisis and projected severe impacts of climate change. Fostering development and achieving food security will require economic growth and diversification that generates jobs for the majority of people, breaking the strong vulnerability to international oil and food price volatility, managing depleting water resources and climate change adaptation effectively, transforming social policies to target the poor, and empowering women to play a more active role in the economy and society. Designing policies and investments for achieving progress in this direction are most likely to be successful if based on lessons from the past, successful countries' experiences and research-based strategic analysis. The paper therefore concludes with a list of priority research areas to identify key actions to be taken on regional, national and sub-national levels to foster development and food security.

‘Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa’ studies the political economy of agrarian transformation in the eponymous regions. Examining Egypt and Tunisia in detail as case studies, it critiques the dominant tropes of food security offered by the international financial institutions and promotes the importance of small-scale family farming in developing sustainable food sovereignty. Egypt and Tunisia are located in the context of the broader Middle East and broader processes of war, environmental transformation and economic reform. The book contributes to uncovering the historical backdrop and contemporary pressures in the Middle East and North Africa for the uprisings of 2010 and 2011. It also explores the continued failure of post-uprising counter-revolutionary governments to directly address issues of rural development that put the position and role of small farmers centre stage.

The agriculture sector is key for economic and social development, but the sector’s potential has not received enough attention from policy makers and stakeholders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Political transitions, instability, and the resulting refugee crisis have shifted focus away from other pressing development challenges, including slow progress in economic diversification, high unemployment, and persistent high food insecurity and rural poverty. Despite its small contribution to GDP, agriculture is strategic for sustainable development in the MENA countries. Agriculture, for example, is central to achieve food and water security in a region characterized as one of the most food insecure and water scarce in the world. The sector’s role in employment is also central, given the region’s high structural unemployment. However, it will not be possible for MENA countries to develop agriculture without a pathway to structural economic transformation. The region has already started the process of transformation but longstanding challenges remain. This report aims to examine the drivers, constraints, and social implications of agricultural development in MENA and to explore possible cornerstones for new and sustainable development strategies in the context of economic transformation. More specifically, the report provides answers to the following questions: • What development strategies and policies did governments in MENA put in place over the past three decades and how did they affect the performance of agriculture? • How did the structural characteristics of the MENA countries affect agricultural development and the economic transformation process in the region? • What did we learn from the past performance of agriculture? What should be the central elements guiding future agricultural policies? • What are elements of a new and sustainable development strategy in MENA countries? • What is the role of agriculture and agro-industries for development in MENA?

This book offers new perspectives on the economic development of the Middle East and North Africa region. Offering both theoretical studies and empirical country studies, it examines micro- and macroeconomic issues and provides deep insights into the development challenges and prospects of various countries in the region. The articles examine a wide range of development issues, including economic growth, natural resource use, food security, poverty and inequality, corruption and transparency, military spending, water and resource scarcity, agriculture and aid effectiveness, and other relevant issues. The volume is aimed at scholars in economic and development studies as well as policy-makers and investors interested in the economic development of the MENA region.

This volume covers the Middle-Eastern and North African regions who are increasingly dependent on imports from abroad for covering their domestic food needs. Results of this study show that this import dependence is likely to increase further by 2050. Some sub-regions hardly reach sustainable levels; the Maghreb, Near and Middle-East could import 60 to 70% of their food needs. These results are indicative whatever the considered scenario, but especially if climate change impacts become more severe.

This study analyses both the historic trajectories of agricultural development in the Middle East, and how the globalisation of food production has impacted domestic food security and food sovereignty. The volume draws on original research conducted on the causes and consequences of food security in the Middle East at national and regional levels as well as household and individual levels.

This report examines data available prior to the Covid-19 pandemic that affected the region and the world in 2020. By 2019, the Arab Region was already off track to achieve hunger and nutrition-related SDG targets by 2030. In fact, after good progress during past decades, since 2015-17 the number of undernourished people in the region has been increasing steadily. In 2019, the number of hungry people stood at 51.4 million, or 12.2 percent of the region’s population. If such trends continue, even ignoring the potential impact of Covid-19, the number of undernourished in the region will exceed 75 million people by 2030.