IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/tmddps/111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Food security, poverty, and economic policy in the Middle East and North Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Lofgren, Hans
  • Richards, Alan

Abstract

In MENA, household food insecurity, which is closely related to poverty and undernourishment, is most severe in rural areas and concentrated within Iraq, Sudan, and Yemen. 25% of the MENA population may be poor and 7% undernourished. The key to increased national and household-level food security is pro-poor growth, driven by export-oriented, labor-intensive sectors. Agricultural sector policies should be subordinate to the pro-poor growth goal and not to the goal of food self-sufficiency. Such a strategy requires conflict resolution; macroeconomic stability; physical and human capital accumulation; reliance on markets and the private sector, and diffusion of ecologically friendly farming practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Lofgren, Hans & Richards, Alan, 2003. "Food security, poverty, and economic policy in the Middle East and North Africa," TMD discussion papers 111, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:tmddps:111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/157316
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richards, Alan, 1994. "The Egyptian farm labor market revisited," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 239-261, April.
    2. Shah, Tushaar & Molden, David J. & Sakthivadivel, Ramasamy & Seckler, David, 2000. "The global groundwater situation: overview of opportunities and challenges," IWMI Books, International Water Management Institute, number 113506, January.
    3. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    4. Shah, T. & Molden, D. & Sakthivadivel, R. & Seckler, D., 2000. "The global groundwater situation: overview of opportunities and challenges," IWMI Books, Reports H025885, International Water Management Institute.
    5. Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1803-1815, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Urban, Frauke & Benders, René M.J. & Moll, Henri C., 2009. "Energy for rural India," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(Supplemen), pages 47-57, November.
    2. Eihab Fathelrahman & Stephen Davies & Safdar Muhammad, 2021. "Food Trade Openness and Enhancement of Food Security—Partial Equilibrium Model Simulations for Selected Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, April.
    3. Zolfaghari, Mehdi & Jariani, Farzaneh, 2021. "Food Security in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)," MPRA Paper 105078, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Wichelns, Dennis, 2004. "The policy relevance of virtual water can be enhanced by considering comparative advantages," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 49-63, April.
    5. Jane, Harrigan, 2011. "Food Security in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and sub-Saharan Africa: A Comparative Analysis," CEI Working Paper Series 2011-5, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ereney Hadjigeorgalis, 2009. "A Place for Water Markets: Performance and Challenges," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(1), pages 50-67.
    2. Neumann, Kathleen & Stehfest, Elke & Verburg, Peter H. & Siebert, Stefan & Müller, Christoph & Veldkamp, Tom, 2011. "Exploring global irrigation patterns: A multilevel modelling approach," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(9), pages 703-713.
    3. Petheram, C. & McKellar, L. & Holz, L. & Poulton, P. & Podger, S. & Yeates, S., 2016. "Evaluation of the economic feasibility of water harvesting for irrigation in a large semi-arid tropical catchment in northern Australia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 84-98.
    4. Gorton, Matthew & Sauer, Johannes & Peshevski, Mile & Bosev, Dane & Shekerinov, Darko & Quarrie, Steve, 2009. "Water Communities in the Republic of Macedonia: An Empirical Analysis of Membership Satisfaction and Payment Behavior," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 1951-1963, December.
    5. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2003. "Halving Global Poverty," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    6. Susan Randolph & Patrick Guyer, 2011. "Tracking the Historical Evolution of States' Compliance with their Economics and Social Rights Obligations of Result: Insights from the Historical SERF Index," Economic Rights Working Papers 18, University of Connecticut, Human Rights Institute.
    7. Cagé, Julia, 2009. "Growth, Poverty Reduction and Governance in Developing Countries: a Survey," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 0904, CEPREMAP.
    8. Muhammad Arif Watto & Amin W. Mugera, 2014. "Measuring Production and Irrigation Efficiencies of Rice Farms: Evidence from the Punjab Province, Pakistan," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 301-322, September.
    9. Strand, Jon, 2012. "Allocative inefficiencies resulting from subsidies to agricultural electricity use : an illustrative model," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5955, The World Bank.
    10. Watto, Muhammad Arif & Mugera, Amin William, "undated". "Measuring Groundwater Irrigation Efficiency in Pakistan: A DEA Approach Using the Sub-vector and Slack-based Models," Working Papers 144943, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    11. Urvashi Sharma & Adeeba Khan & Venkatesh Dutta, 2021. "Long-term sustainability of groundwater resources in the central Ganga Alluvial Plain, India: Study from Gomti River Basin," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16015-16037, November.
    12. Siwa Msangi & Sarah Ann Cline, 2016. "Improving Groundwater Management for Indian Agriculture: Assessing Tradeoffs Across Policy Instruments," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(03), pages 1-33, September.
    13. Mr. Andrew Berg & Anne O. Krueger, 2003. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty: A Selective Survey," IMF Working Papers 2003/030, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Biraj Kanti Mondal & Satiprasad Sahoo, 2022. "Evaluation of spatiotemporal dynamics of water storage changes at block level for sustainable water management in Howrah District of West Bengal," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(7), pages 9519-9568, July.
    15. Cobbing, Jude & Hiller, Bradley, 2019. "Waking a sleeping giant: Realizing the potential of groundwater in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 597-613.
    16. Yonghong Hao & Bibo Cao & Xiang Chen & Jian Yin & Ronglin Sun & Tian-Chyi Yeh, 2013. "A Piecewise Grey System Model for Study the Effects of Anthropogenic Activities on Karst Hydrological Processes," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(5), pages 1207-1220, March.
    17. Grabiella Berloffa & Maria Luigia Segnana, 2004. "Trade, inequality and pro-poor growth: Two perspectives, one message?," Department of Economics Working Papers 0408, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    18. World Bank, 2010. "Deep Wells and Prudence : Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing Groundwater Overexploitation in India," World Bank Publications - Reports 2835, The World Bank Group.
    19. Yuan Li & Rui Wang & Hongbo Ma & Jian-Min Zhang, 2025. "Rising groundwater table due to restoration projects amplifies earthquake induced liquefaction risk in Beijing," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, December.
    20. Son H. Kim & Mohamad Hejazi & Lu Liu & Katherine Calvin & Leon Clarke & Jae Edmonds & Page Kyle & Pralit Patel & Marshall Wise & Evan Davies, 2016. "Balancing global water availability and use at basin scale in an integrated assessment model," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 217-231, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fpr:tmddps:111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.