Report No. 2: Collection of policies and database on food, land and water systems in Lao PDR (as 20 December 2022).

The Middle East and North Africa (MNA) region is one of the most water scarce regions in the world, with a regional annual average of 1,200 cubic meters per person (world average is close to 7,000). Water, not land, is now the limiting factor for improving agricultural production in the MNA region. Maximizing water productivity, not yield per unit of land, is, therefore, a better strategy for on-farm water management under such conditions. Raising water productivity requires integrated attention to improving technical, agronomic and management measures. Water User Associations greatly facilitate the implementation of integrated measures. Using satellite remote sensing technologies, planners and policy makers can make more effective decisions to ensure a stable supply of water for food and the environment. All MNA countries with the exception of Morocco are net importers of agricultural products. The greatest benefits for MNA will be generated by comprehensive domestic agricultural reforms, in tandem with higher market access in European and world markets. MNA governments will face issues relating to timing and sequencing of reforms. Given its current resources endowments and growth prospects, it is in the best interest for MNA countries to push towards proceeding with the liberalization of markets in developed countries. At the same time, they could ask for some sort of compensation for higher prices and lost preferences in the form of non-trade distorting financial schemes or even cash grants for those countries facing significant losses as a result. Countries will have to pay a particular attention to the implications of this gradual approach for government revenues, adjustment costs and credibility of reforms.

World hunger, according to the 2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI), has declined somewhat since 1990 but remains “serious.” The global average masks dramatic differences among regions and countries. Regionally, the highest GHI scores are in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. South Asia reduced its GHI score significantly between 1990 and 1996—mainly by reducing the share of underweight children— but could not maintain this rapid progress. Though Sub-Saharan Africa made less progress than South Asia in the 1990s, it has caught up since the turn of the millennium, with its 2012 GHI score falling below that of South Asia. From the 1990 GHI to the 2012 GHI, 15 countries reduced their scores by 50 percent or more. In terms of absolute progress, between the 1990 GHI and the 2012 GHI, Angola, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nicaragua, Niger, and Vietnam saw the largest improvements in their scores. Twenty countries still have levels of hunger that are “extremely alarming” or “alarming.” Most of the countries with alarming GHI scores are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (the 2012 GHI does not, however, reflect the recent crisis in the Horn of Africa, which intensified in 2011, or the uncertain food situation in the Sahel). Two of the three countries with extremely alarming 2012 GHI scores—Burundi and Eritrea—are in Sub-Saharan Africa; the third country with an extremely alarming score is Haiti. Its GHI score fell by about one quarter from 1990 to 2001, but most of this improvement was reversed in subsequent years. The devastating January 2010 earthquake, although not yet fully captured by the 2012 GHI because of insufficient availability of recent data, pushed Haiti back into the category of “extremely alarming.” In contrast to recent years, the Democratic Republic of Congo is not listed as “extremely alarming,” because insufficient data are available to calculate the country’s GHI score. Current and reliable data are urgently needed to appraise the situation in the country.