Previous Return to table of contents   |   Search Reports Next
« Back to weltagrarbericht.de

8 | Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) Report

Box 1-1. Climate Change: The Nile Delta and Darfur

The Nile Delta is one of the oldest intensely cultivated areas on earth. It covers an area of about 25,000 km2. Almost 40 million inhabitants live in the delta. Deserts surround the low-lying fertile floodplains. The area is suitable for intensive agriculture. Most of a 50-km-wide land strip along the coast is less than 2 m above sea level and is protected from flooding only by a coastal sand belt 1 to 10 km wide, formed by discharge of the Rosetta and Damietta branches of the Nile. Erosion of the protective sand belt is a serious problem and has accelerated since the construction of the Aswan Dam.

Rising sea levels caused by expected global warming would destroy weak parts of the sand belt, essential to protect lagoons and the low-lying reclaimed lands. The impact would be serious. One-third of Egypt's fish catches are made in the lagoons. Sea-level rise would change the water quality and affect most freshwater fish. Valuable agricultural land would be inundated. Vital, low-lying installations in Alexandria and Port Said would be threatened. Recreational tourism beach facilities would be endangered and essential groundwater would be salinized. Dikes and protective measures would probably prevent the worst flooding up to a 50-cm sea-level rise. However, it would cause serious groundwater salinization and the impact of increasing wave action would be serious (UNEP, 2002a).

Darfur: Ecological degradation in the Sudano-Sahelian ecozone, and especially in Darfur, mainly caused by climate change, has been so severe that the traditional means for preventing and managing interethnic disputes have been rendered virtually unworkable. Indeed, many of the current disputes are not being fought along traditional political borders, but along ecological borders (in this case the borders of the semiarid plains roamed

 


by "Arab" pastoralist nomads and those of the wet oases settled by "African" fur farmers) that divide richer and poorer ecozones. To continue to treat the conflict in Darfur, and many other parts of Africa, as purely ethnic, tribal, political or religious, and to ignore the growing impact of ecological degradation and depletion of the resource base, will ultimately lead to a distorted understanding of the real situation, and consequently limit the possibility for genuine conflict resolution.

In Darfur, as in most other parts of the continent, the balance of soil, climate, water and flora upon which human and animal life depend has been upset. In addition to persistent drought (six over the last hundred years, three occurring in the last 20 years), unsustainable methods of land use, such as large-scale mechanized rainfed farming and overgrazing in marginal lands, are destroying the ecosystem. As a result of ecological deterioration and armed conflicts, millions of people have been forced to abandon their homelands and have become displaced-so many in fact that Sudan has the world's highest proportion of internally and externally displaced people, one in every five (El-Nour, 1992).

Climate change can dramatically affect livelihoods and ecosystems. In these regions, lying between isohyets 100-600 mm, even the slightest decline in mean annual rainfall could bring people and livestock to the brink of disaster. Along with the general decline in rainfall, vegetation stripped from large areas has allowed sand dunes to move, which in turn has killed almost all remaining plant life. There has been an increase in incidents of conflict corresponding with decrease in rainfall (Suliman, 2000). Social phenomena in the region must be analyzed within the context of climatic and ecological transformations (Bachler and Spillmann, 1992; Suliman, 2000).

 

is only 13%. This share is lowest in the high-income countries, 3%, but can be as high as 60 to 80% in low-income countries (Rodriguez, 1997).

Countries with agriculture less than 10% in GDP, mostly the Gulf countries, have scarce natural resources and agriculture has not developed because of it. Countries, such as United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have to import staple products (Table 1-3). But, because they are rich from their oil income, they have no problem importing staple products. They do not really need to increase agricultural production, although in case of political crisis, the food weapon could be used against them. Jordan and Djibouti have scarce natural resources, nor do they have oil wealth. CWANA countries may be classified in three types.

Agriculture remains important in countries with agriculture in GDP between 10 and 20%. Nevertheless, most of these countries are dependent upon importing staple products. A large percentage of labor is employed in agriculture and the population density is high compared with agricultural production. This discrepancy is from natural resource scarcity, unequal access to resources and low productivity of labor. Countries such as Algeria and Iran can afford

  

imported staple products because they have oil income. Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen do not have oil. The share of agriculture in GDP in Lebanon is between 10 and 20% because agriculture is still important. Farmers have access to land and water and the farms are family owned. Lebanon is not dependent on imports for major staple products. Although population has increased in the last 30 years, migration has maintained the equilibrium between resources and population density. The Caucasus countries, although agriculture is more than 20% of the GDP, are still dependent on imports of major staple food because land tenure is uncertain and not secure (FAO, 2005). Nevertheless, in Tajikistan, agriculture has accounted for one-third of the economic growth since 1997 and has made a major contribution to the fall in rural poverty.

1.1.4.2 National saving and investment

The national saving rate induces level investment, otherwise the nation has to borrow (dissaving). National saving was high in Jordan, 24.4% in 2001, from external financial transfers. The saving rate was around 15.4% in Egypt in 2001 and the accumulation of capital as a percentage of
Previous Return to table of contents   |   Search Reports Next
« Back to weltagrarbericht.de