ISLAMABAD: COMSTECH-the OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation will arrange a webinar titled “Shocks, Stresses and Resilience of Food System in the Arab Region” on July 26.
According to an official of COMSTECH, Secretary General, The Higher Council for Science and Technology (HCST), Jordan, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Al Musa will be the convener/speaker of the webinar. Prof. Dr. Abdullah Al Musa is the member of Technical Experts Group in the domain of climate change, Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).
Dr. Abdullah M. Al-Musa is an academician with more than 20 years of experience in higher institution management at different levels starting from department head to president of the largest two universities in Jordan; namely the University of Jordan for three years and Yarmouk University for four years.
Prior to involvement in management and at intermittent periods when released from management assignments, he got involved in teaching and research. He is well-published (h-index 17, i10-index 23) in the field of plant virology (etiology and epidemiology).
Early stage researchers, students, and relevant personnel from the research laboratories and industries will attend the webinar.
According to the abstract of the webinar, the framework of the food system interlinked three components namely the food supply chain, the food environment and the consumer behavior. The latter could be filtered at the individual level.
The system is driven by exogenous determinants including demographic, economical, socio-cultural, political and institutional, technological and infrastructure, biophysical and environmental elements. This conceptual framework analyzes the complexity of interaction among the system components and its drivers and further illustrates the impact of different shocks and stresses the system is exposed to.
The Arab food system is subjected to shocks characterized by short duration, abrupt and rapid onset events such as those caused by climate change, the sudden eruption of pandemic (i.e. COVID-19), macroeconomic shocks and violence and conflicts.
These shocks exacerbate the impact of persistent pressures exerted by already intrinsic local drivers of the system.
A major shock to the Arab Region’s food system comes about by flaring violence and conflicts that engulfed one-third of the countries in the region.
These conflicts have resulted in extensive population displacement exacerbating food insecurity in the conflict and host countries as indicated in prevalence of undernourishment and food insecurity experience scale indicators.
The advent of COVID-19 further strained the economies of the countries in the Region resulting in a 5.35-19.6% decline in GDP in 2020.
Shocks emanated from climate change aggravated already scarce water and arable land resources in the Region.
Surface temperature in the region is estimated to increase between 1.7-3.36°C in 2060. Moreover, water scarcity is complicated by water policies taken by governments within and outside the Region in Turkey and Ethiopia.
The Region’s food system is vulnerable to volatile oil prices and food prices, as the majority of countries depend on oil export which constitutes 18.5-96.5% of government revenue in oil-exporting countries.
The dependence on food import is obvious in all countries in the region as indicated by the wheat self-sufficiency ratio that range from zero in Kuwait, Djibouti and UAE to 58% in Morocco.
The above-mentioned shocks impacted livelihoods, productivity, displacement of people or caused slow economic growth with negative consequences on the food system’s outcomes especially the food and nutrition security. Such impact is more pronounced on financially vulnerable countries or those mired with conflicts.
At the individual country level the impact threatens the disadvantaged population such as small-holder farmers and informal urban producers and workers.
The food and nutrition security outcome of the food system in the Arab Region is also subjected to stresses associated with its drivers. Such stresses are characterized by lasting duration and slow onset.
Stresses created by the intrinsic biophysical and environmental elements are shown in the ever-diminishing arable land and water availability due to variability and shortage of rainfall which further is complicated by pollution, over extraction of fossil water from deep aquifers and ever-dwindling surface water that run across international borders.
Technology can present a dual impact on the food system. It can improve productivity and resource conservation at one hand. But at the same time it allows exhaustion of resources that otherwise are not accessible (extraction of water from deep aquifers). Moreover, technology could widen disparity among players in the food system with reference to their differential capacities, capabilities, affordability and financial accessibility.
The stresses imposed by socio-cultural factors are best illustrated in higher prevalence of poverty in rural settings and in existing gender inequalities.
The fact that the Arab Region is a net-food importer makes it vulnerable to war and conflicts in food-exporting countries and subsequent sanctions, embargoes and commodity price fluctuation.
Stresses emanating from the rapid population growth in the Arab Region resulted in extensive urbanization which is associated with soil degradation and diet shift towards more processed, calorie-dense food with a higher carbon footprint and resulting in a high incidence of obesity and non-communicable diseases.
The aforementioned shocks and stresses have accumulative impact on the Arab Region food system and resulted in weakening the food Supply chain, the food environment and the consumer behavior in the Region.
The intended participants can register to attend the webinar through the web link: https://forms.gle/rJza9jfoGrpECZFz7.