Najib Saab in Rio Prescribes Survival Kit for Arab Countries:

Resource Management and Regional Cooperation to Bridge Food Deficit

Rio de Janeiro, 20/6/2012

In a statement yesterday at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Najib Saab, Secretary General of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED), warned of the expanding gap between biocapacity and footprint in Arab countries, which is mostly reflected in food deficit. He said that Arab demand on resources is more than double what is available locally, and called to bridge the gap through efficient production and regional cooperation.

The Roundtable, entitled "Food Security for Development in a Changing Arab World", was organized by the League of Arab States, ESCWA, and the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ), in cooperation with AFED. The Palestinian Minister of Environment Youssef Abu Safiyyeh also took part in the panel, along with Marco Marzano, President of World Farmers Organization and Carsten Hoffmann, Head of Trade at GIZ.

Saab said that the food deficit, largely bridged from income of imports financed by oil exports, is unsustainable model, taking into account the increasing prices of food imports and the eventual depletion of non-renewable energy resources. He added that "food security is not necessarily synonymous with food self-sufficiency, especially at a country level where any chance of achieving self-sufficiency will be at the cost of depleting non-renewable resources. Bridging the deficit and achieving sustainable well-being demands regional cooperation based on comparative advantage in agricultural resources. This is the best survival kit Arab countries can possess."

Saab gave glimpses of the AFED report on ecological footprint in Arab countries, to be released in November 2012, disclosing that the average ecological footprint per capita increased by 78 per cent over the past 50 years, compared to 60 per cent decrease in biocapacity. "Figures show that if all humans lived like the average resident of Qatar, 6.6 planets would be required to satisfy this level of consumption and emissions of carbon dioxide. By contrast, if everyone lived like an average Yemeni, humans would demand only half of planet Earth. "

Luckily, Saab stressed, solutions are at hand, as shown in AFED's report on Green Economy, "which found that raising average Arab cereal productivity from its low level of 1,700 kg per hectare to the world average of 3,700 kg per hectare, coupled with an improved irrigation efficiency, would increase the overall cereal production by 50 million tons, enough to offset the current 20 million tons shortage and even generate a surplus of about 30million tons in 2030."

Saab concluded that "in order to pursue sustainable well-being for all residents in the region, attention should be directed to achieving more regional economic integration and cooperation and towards more inter-Arab trade free of barriers, where the free flow of goods, capital, and people works to the benefit of all countries. In addition, difficult policy questions regarding population and consumption growth will also need to be addressed in the near future."