1. Food Security and Nutrition in
the Southern Basin of the
Mediterranean Region:
Linking Problems at the Household Level to
Policy Actions
Food Secure Arab World Conference
February 6-7, 2012
Beirut, Lebanon
Mohamed Y. Aw-Dahir,
Regional Food Security Officer, FAO RNE
René Verduijn Ed;
International Consultant

2. Presentation outline
 Caveats/disclaimers
 Methodology and approach
 Food security Situation in the sub region: An overview
 Case studies
 Summary and conclusions
 Some policy options
 Observations for Way forward

3. Caveats/disclaimers
 Inconclusive analysis—only three case studies and
many parts of the sub region not covered
 A-political in focus
 No speculation on impact of Arab spring or likely
impact on next 1-2 years
 Publication date - end of Feb

4. Methodology and Approach
 A technical paper written by a team of experts
from FAO, WFP, and UNDP with comments and
input from WHO, UNOCHA, UNICEF, and AOAD.
An international consultant was responsible for
the overall editing and process facilitation.
 Focus: review of the socio-economic status of
households in countries bordering the southern
basin of the Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, oPt, Syria, Tunisia)
plus Jordan.

5. Methodology and Approach Cont..
 Review of existing literature
 Focus on the evolving trends, underlying
structural problems, challenges, opportunities,
etc.
 Use of case studies to draw out recent
experiences/ household level problems in FSN

6. Food Security Situation in the
Sub Region: A Context
 Some of the structural issues: Food deficit,
high unemployment, high income growth but
disparity, higher population growth rate, increased
urbanization, dwindling natural resource(water
and land) etc.
 New and emerging challenges: Impact of
Climate Change, political and social unrests, cross
border population movement, slow down of
economic activities (tourism and associated
service sectors),food inflation, increased cost of
subsidies etc

7. Food Security Situation in the
Sub Region: A Context cont..
 Share a vulnerability context that includes a fragile and
overexploited natural resource base.
 The per capita renewable water resources has fallen by more
than 70 percent since 1950, with a further 40 decrease
expected from present levels by 2050.
 Poverty levels are still high with about 20 percent of people
living below US $2 equivalent a day.
 Large segment of the population is subject to falling back into
poverty as they earn only marginally more than the US$2.

8. Estimated wheat imports and domestic
utilization in 2010/11pt..

9. Global food prices and local
measures
 For most of the countries, the hike of international
food prices has not translated into high domestic
prices due to Government interventions aimed at
maintaining subsidies on basic food items.
 But the budgetary impact in 2010 of the
“compensation system” for wheat importers
introduced by Morocco and the increase in welfare
spending in Tunisia and Algeria was about 4 percent,
5 percent and 3.5 percent of the GDP of these
countries respectively

10. Case Study 1: oPt Case study
 Used the resilience framework which looks at the
root causes of household food insecurity and
vulnerability instead of trying to predict how well
households will cope with future crises or disasters.
 The resilience framework measures the ability of a
household to keep within a certain level of well-
being (e.g. food security) withstanding stresses and
shocks, depends on: i) the options available to the
household to make a living and, ii) its ability to
manage risks.

11. oPt Case study cont..
 Data source: a Socio-Economic and Food Security
Survey (oPt) – PCBS, FAO and WFP.
Conclusion
 If interventions are designed in ways that increase
resilience by tackling the root causes of food
insecurity, specifically, access to diversified and
stable income sources, better access to public
services and assets, the need for such emergencies
interventions will diminish.

12. Case Study 2: Egypt
 Data source: HHIES (2005)+ time series on food prices.
Conclusion
 The increase in the price of cereals is not necessarily a relevant
indicator to assess the impact of soaring food prices.
 Given the stability of the price of subsidized bread since 1989,
the increase in the prices of other food products has more effect
on food consumption.
 The increase in consumer food prices in the local market is far
from being a simple transmission of the increases in
international food prices

13. Case study 3: Tunisia
 Data source: FAO and WFP Emergency Food Security
Assessment, conducted in Tunisia mid-2011.
Conclusion
 Kasserine (Centre Region), has the highest prevalence of food
insecure households.
 Households have developed two distinct types of coping
strategies as a response to food insecurity, namely smoothing
consumption by switching to cheaper foodstuffs, decreasing the
number/size of meals, etc; and by smoothing assets, i.e.
consuming stocks of seeds, sale of household/productive
equipment and livestock.

14. Tunisia cont…
 The challenge in ahead is to ensure that
economic growth is high enough to meet the
popular demand for more jobs and higher
standard of living; in the interim, an increase of
social benefits and subsidies on basic food items
may be needed to ease the situation of the
unemployed.
 In the long term however, fundamental changes
will be necessary with targeted policy responses
to the manifold challenges.

15. Summary and Conclusions
 The sub-region depends significantly on imports ,
while local production of fresh and nutritious foods
meets a large proportion of the domestic demand.
 Social protection is well-established but given the
current vulnerability context, is set to be of even
greater importance in the future.
Poverty is at the core of the food security problem in
the sub-region. The poor spend anywhere from 35 to
65 percent of their income on food.

16. Summary and Conclusions cont..
 Food security is predominantly an access issue in the sub-
region.
 Unemployment rates are high; despite high levels of
urbanization the service industry is lagging behind, and many
people depend on informal jobs.
 The potential of the rural and off-farm economy is not fully
exploited as an engine of growth.
 The negative sentiments in the global economy and uncertainty
of the local socio-political environment will have impact on the
sub-region’s investment climate.

17. Summary and Conclusions cont..
 Over the past fifteen years, the sub-region has
made significant progress in reducing infant and
child mortality but have achieved less homogeneous
results in addressing child malnutrition.
 hidden hunger is prevalent in the countries of the
sub region especially for nutrients including Iron,
Iodine, Zinc, Calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D etc.

18. Some policy options
 Producer related measures
Natural Resource Management: Adapting to
Climate Change
Efficiency/water Management
Research and education
Mitigation of food price volatility
Early Warning (price monitoring)
Reform social safety net programs

19. Observations for way forward
 Importance of linkages/ integrated approaches/
lack of regional integration.
Large potential for governments, including private
sector?
Will the Arab Spring provide a new chance to make
governments accountable to their citizens?
So what’s stopping us?

20. THANK YOU