The Food-Energy-Water Nexus in the Arab Countries

John Bryden, and Karen RefsgaardNILF, Oslo, Norway

ICRPS-OECD Workshop on the Water, Energy and Food NexusMemphis Tennessee, 18th May 2015

Plan

• Intro: Why the Arab region?• Why a Nexus Approach?• Water supplies and consumption• Energy production and consumption• Rural electrification• Food production and consumption• Institutional issues• Conclusion

Why the Arab Region?

– GDP per capita: $100-$100,000 – 5% of world’s population (360m)

• >50% of food calories imported

– Centre of conflicts around water• <1% of global water resources

– Energy• 57% of world’s proven oil reserves• Enormous untapped solar energy reserve

– High vulnerability to climate change and conflicts– Human rights issues– Global impacts and implications

Why a ‘Nexus’ approach?

• Inextricable links between Water, Food, Energy and Human existence– Especially important in Arab

countries• Dysfunctional separate

governance systems need to be ‘joined up’– To ensure synergies, trade-

offs, and HR issues are properly dealt with

Water Challenges

• Arab region is in perpetual, and worsening, water deficit, despite ancient ‘smart’ systems eg. Falaj in Oman– Agriculture takes 85% of the water

• Many water related regional conflicts– Israel-Palestine-Jordan (Jordan River)– Turkey-Iraq-Syria (Tigris and Euphrates)– N-S Sudan– Nile River– Ethiopia-Somalia (Jubba and Shabele)– Jordan and Saudi Arabia (Disi/Saq Aquifer)

UN World Water Development Report 2014 Vol.1.

“Water development and management programmes, if planned properly, can serve multiple functions, from contributing to energy and food production to helping communities adapt to climate change. A nexus approach to sectoral management, through enhanced dialogue, collaboration and coordination, is needed to ensure that co-benefits and trade-offs are considered and that appropriate safeguards are put in place”

Human needs for Water

• The body cannot function without water

• Competition – between agriculture,

industry, tourism and people for water is increasing

• Access to improved water supplies– 53.4m people lack access– 70% of whom are in rural

areas – case Lebanon =>

• Desalination plays an increasingly important role, but– Only in the richer countries– Costs > $1 per gallon– Pollutes– Uses oil at present

• Insufficient attention to– water conservation and

recycling

Water Policy and Governance Challenges

• Water in chronic deficit – while GDP, Population and Urbanisation are all increasing

• Access to clean potable drinking water – a human right and MDG priority

• Food production takes 85%– and yet there is only 50% self-sufficiency

• NPM in conflict with – Human Rights approach and with IWRM

• Desalination not a realistic solution in the long run– and the costs are beyond most people, and poor countries

Energy Challenges

• Supply– Mostly from fossil fuel resources– Increased supply comes at the cost of exports

• Demand – has been rapidly growing

• Energy subsidised expecially in NOEC– Who does it help?

• Grid infrastructure challenges• Despite generally high electrification rates

– 23m mainly rural people in MENA region without electricity – Electrification rates are especially in Yemen, Sudan, Djibouti,

Somalia and Eritrea

Energy hopes ...• Renewables, especially solar and

wind– But need adaptation of

technology, and lack indigenous innovation systems and competitive manufacture

– Wish – and some plans in richer countries - to use for desalination of water

• Off-grid, decentralised solutions <= case training course in Jordan– But not necessarily popular with

large state owned and run electical utilities

• Potential human rights issues in future

Food Challenges

• Industrialisation of agriculture over 50 years has severely depleted aquifers– Irrigation systems are mostly inefficient/wasteful– 85% of regions annual water use is for ag. (case Egypt)– Ag water use is subsidised– Waste water is largely unused

• Food is expensive– The poor spend 35% to 65% of income on food

• Access to nutritious food is a human right

Food solutions• More efficient irrigation, incentivised by tougher

regulations and pricing for ag use– Focus on areas with adequate water resources eg Ethiopia, S

Sudan• Utilise

– recycled wastewater via urban agriculture, – more water harvesting

• Focus on basic foods for human nutrition – but what about qat in Yemen?

• Improve dryland and rainfed agriculture, – by developing new or improved drought-resistant varieties

(eg the Awasi sheep)• A new approach to land tenure/ ownership/ rights and

communal property– Ending ‘land grabs’, and ‘distributions of favour’(eg Sudan)

Institutional Issues are the Key

• Human rights focus needed – access to food, water and energy for all!– India’s National Food Security Act (2013) as a ‘model’?– But not all Arab countries have signed the HR conventions, and some have with reservations

• Land & water ownership, tenure and use rights need a new approach in which markets must be heavily regulated – Conflicts between Human Rights approach and New Public Management approach

• Bottom-up and needs-oriented approach – Must be context-sensitive– One size does not fit all!

Conclusions

• There are serious and inter-linked problems of water, food and energy in the Arab countries– Above all, Water, a major source of regional and supra-

regional conflicts, and a problem being exacerbated by extremes of wealth and poverty, and by climate change

• The nexus approach enables – better joined-up governance, – but leaves major institutional issues unresolved

• Especially Human Rights vs NPM approaches • Land & Water Rights and Regulations

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!

John.bryden@nilf.noKaren.refsgaard@nilf.no