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	Urgent policy actions needed to tackle food & nutrition security in the Arab world by International Food Policy Research Institute   Poverty and income inequality rates in the Arab world are higher than official numbers have suggested. Food security and poverty are particularly closely linked in Arab countries due to high vulnerability to food-related external shocks, including food price volatility, natural disasters, increasing water scarcity, and conflicts.   Food security poses a serious challenge for the Arab region due to high dependency on food imports exacerbated by global price volatility, diminished capacity for generating foreign exchange to pay for imported food, rising food demand driven by continued high population growth, and limited potential for agricultural growth due to severe water constraints and water resource management challenges.   Officially, less than 20 percent of the population in the Arab region lives under the $2/day poverty line, but income-only measures can be misleading. Child undernutrition rates, an alternate and arguably more comprehensive measure of food security, are high and have not decreased with GDP growth to the same extent as other regions in the world.   In some cases, such as Egypt, undernourishment of children has increased over the past eight years. Child undernutrition is measured by the percentage of children younger than five years of age who are stunted. In the Arab region, one in five children is stunted, and the prevalence of child undernutrition in countries like Sudan, Comoros, Somalia, and Yemen is considerably higher, with rates around 40 percent or greater.   “As food security was one of the triggers of the Arab Awakening, finding policy responses to food insecurity is particularly important for policymakers in Arab countries,” said Clemens Breisinger, IFPRI research fellow. “Given the high levels of growing dissatisfaction of people in the region, urgent actions should be taken.”   The report offers three key policy recommendations including fostering growth that enhances food security, and revisiting the allocation and efficiency of public spending.   The region’s food-security progress is significantly slowed by a lack of reliable data. Poverty estimates only exist in half of the Arab countries and there is no common food security indicator in the region. Our report proposes that countries should develop and improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of data to allow for accurate, evidence-based decisions for the wellbeing of the region’s economies and people. It also suggests that existing data, such as household surveys, social indicators, national accounts, and consumer prices should be made available in a timely fashion.   Fostering economic growth is a key to enhance food security. Governments must improve food security at the national level and work to generate foreign exchange revenues that allow food imports. Improving food security at the household level requires inclusive growth that generates income and jobs for the poor in both rural and urban areas.   Even though governments in the Arab region spend more (as a share of GDP) on their citizens than anywhere else in the developing world, the efficiency of this spending should be assessed. “Public investments in agriculture, education, health, infrastructure, and social protection are most critical for reducing poverty and improving food security,” says Shenggen Fan, IFPRI’s director general. Because education spending is much less effective at reducing poverty in the Arab region compared to the rest of the world, countries should institute education system reforms to address relevant job market needs and skill gaps.   During this time, when the level of dissatisfaction among the region’s people is high and growing higher, there is an urgent need for strategic policies that address constraints to food security. Successful design and implementation of these strategies will require leadership, sound laws and institutions, politicians who are accountable and listen to the voices of the people, and civil society members that are part of the tenants of democracy.
	Without healthy farms, Africa''s forecast is hunger by Bruce Campbell Alertnet - Climate Conversations   Nov 2011   A wise man once said, a hungry man is an angry man. The same goes for the farmer who cannot feed herself.   If African countries don’t want to see this proverb become reality, they must honour their commitments to invest more in the future of agriculture - to make farms more productive and sustainable, and protect farmers from the risks of climate change and extreme weather.   Farming is the life blood of more than half a billion people on the African continent, and climate change will have significant impacts on African agriculture. Rising temperatures and an increase in droughts and floods could dramatically alter growing seasons and wreak havoc on harvests.   The rate of crop failure - already one-in-four in much of eastern Africa - will increase in all areas except Central Africa, according to research by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR). Because of climate change, rain-fed crops could fail every other year in much of southern Africa.   In the past, African farmers have shown a remarkable capacity to adapt to changes in climate. But the temperature increases of four degrees or more predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could push millions of farmers beyond their ability to adapt. And it is unlikely that negotiations at the global climate talks opening in Durban on Nov. 28 will produce an agreement to limit global warming to two degrees or lower.   As such, Africans must realise that we cannot expect the world to create a climate solution for us. We must embark on our own path towards climate security. And that starts with ensuring our own food security.   A number of options are already available that could help farmers adapt to warming, but they require us to build our institutions and the infrastructure that can improve our crops and protect our farmers.   Farm transformation programs in countries like Rwanda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Malawi, which are boosting yields that were once some of the lowest in the world, are the first line of defence for African farmers in the fight against climate change.   While a drought-induced food crisis affects millions in the Horn of Africa, there are some rays of hope in that region. Innovative crop and livestock insurance programmes have begun issuing payouts to farmers who purchased micro-insurance to protect their livestock and crops against drought.   These programmes use solar-powered weather stations and satellite data to monitor conditions and issue payouts automatically when crops and grazing lands have deteriorated beyond a certain point. These climate-risk insurance schemes are an example of market-based innovations that could gain much wider currency in Africa.   In southern Africa, hundreds of thousands of farmers are practising conservation agriculture that will help them adapt to climate change. Since the approach involves reduced or no tillage, farmers are able to keep more moisture, fertility and organic content in the soil. This climate-smart approach also lowers greenhouse gas emissions through reduced use of machinery and chemical fertilisers and by storing more carbon in the soil.   In the Sahel, scientists have become increasingly adept at predicting conditions such as higher-than-average temperatures or prolonged drought during a growing season. But African governments need to improve agricultural extension services so that forecasts and other valuable, timely information reach farmers in time to help them make better decisions in the field. In Zimbabwe, for example, a study found that crop yields increased by 19 percent for farmers who used seasonal forecasts to guide growing decisions.   A recent survey by the CGIAR research programme for Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) found that climate variability and unpredictability - such as earlier rains, less overall rainfall and more frequent drought and flooding - had led 80 percent of the households in one region of Kenya to report changes in their farming practices. Farmers are eager for solutions, and are willing and able to put them to work.   African governments, the donor community and other development partners need to support farmers as they endeavour to boost their own resilience in the face of the growing climate threat.   Investments in productivity should be complemented with approaches that reduce climate risk, cut emissions from farming and deforestation, and increase farmers’ access to climate information. Without healthy farms, the forecast is for hunger, and that is gloomy news indeed.   * Bruce Campbell is the director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS). He was born in South Africa and worked for 20 years in Zimbabwe. Visit the related web page
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