Water Scarcity Needs ‘Urgent, Massive Response’ in North Africa and Near East (FAO)

Cairo – The looming water insufficiency in the North Africa and Middle East region requires an urgent and massive intervention, said recently Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jose Graziano da Silva.

Access to water is an indispensable need for food security, human health and agriculture, and its looming scarcity in the North Africa and Middle East region is a huge challenge requiring an “urgent and massive response,” FAO Director-General said in Cairo, as quoted by a FAO statement.

Jose Graziano da Silva attended a high-level meeting covering FAO’s partnership with Egypt on the ‘1.5 million feddan initiative’, the government’s project to reclaim up to two million hectares of desert land for agricultural and other uses.

In this regard, he stressed the importance of reworking on food systems and diets, according to the statement, that reported the organization’s recent research demonstrating that higher temperatures could reduce production seasons in the region by 18 days and agricultural yields a further 27% to 55% less by the end of this century.

He also expressed his strong support to the Egyptian Authorities and committed to back programmes aiming at addressing water scarcity and promoting climate resilient agriculture.