1) Water and food security in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMCs) are threatened by climate change impacts like increased rainfall variability and more extreme weather events. 2) SEMCs are highly dependent on food imports and many citizens live in poverty, making them vulnerable to global food crises which can disrupt authoritarian regimes. 3) Competition and potential conflicts exist over shared water resources like international rivers and fossil aquifers, as well as large-scale international land deals in North Africa and the Middle East for agricultural production.

1. Geopolitical Implication of Water and Food Security in Southern and Eastern
Mediterranean Countries
Eugenia Ferragina
Istituto di Studi sulle Società del Mediterraneo (ISSM)
Institute of Studies on Mediterranean Societies
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
National Research Council
Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture in the
Euro-Mediterranean Area
Rome – February 2, 2015

2. Overview
• The impact of climatic change on water and food security in SEMC’s
• The political repercussion of global food crisis in SEMC’s
• The geopolitical dimension of water and food security

3. Mediterranean “hot spot” of global climatic
change
• Increase in time-space rainfall
variations
• More intensity and frequency
of extremes weather events
• Effects on cultivation
employing green water
(mainly cereals)

4. National Rainfall Index (NRI) (mm/yr) 1963–2011.
Source: data analysis – FAO 2013. AQUASTAT Database, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) and World Development Indicators 2014.

5. Land under cereal production in some SEMCs
1980–2012 (hectares)
Source: World Development Indicators, 2014

6. Self-sufficiency index for cereals in some SEMCs
Data Source: World Development Indicators, 2014

8. • Strong dependency from foodstuff
imports
• High percentage of population under or
close to the poverty line
• Political effects: disruption of the
Authoritarian Bargain Model. In this
model, autocratic leaders provided their
citizens with some economic benefits
(welfare and public employment
programs) in return for consent to
relinquish political rights
The vulnerability of SEMC’s to the global food crisis

9. The geopolitics of water and land in MENA region
The international competition for water involves:
•Renewable water ressources: international river basin (Jordan,
Tigris and Euphrates, Nile)
• Non renewable water resources: shared fossil aquifers (Disi,
Nubian Sunstone Aquifer, North-Western Sahara Aquifer System,
SASS)
•

11. The South Valley Development Project :
Aree valorizzate tra il
1997 e il 2004
(1.300.000 feddan)
Progetti in fase di
realizzazione (1.120.000
feddan)
Aree da valorizzare
entro il 2017 (980.000
feddan)

12. Changing power relations on the Nile
• SVDP : a new claim jeopardizing initiatives of upstream
countries
• The counter-hegemonic strategy of co-riparians Ethiopia and
Sudan (Millennium Dam, Mérowé Dam)
• The double-edged Hydropolitics of Egypt

13. The strategic role of non renewable fossil aquifers
• Localisation for 98,5
% in MENA
countries
• Saudi Arabia, Libya
and Algeria account
for 85% of world
total withdrawl
• Allocation of fossil
water mainly to
agriculture (86 % in
Saudi Arabia, 71 %
in Libya, 35 % in
Algeria)
Fonte: Atlas of Transboundary Aquifers, UNESCO, Internationally Shared
Aquifer Resources Management (ISARM) Programme, 2009

14. Transnational land deals as a new driver of
conflict over land and water
• Definition of land grabbing: the purchase or leasing
of agricultural land in developing countries
• Investor countries: countries with limited water
endowments and strong food dependency
• Target countries: concentration on selected
countries with specific characteristics

15. Paese investitore Settori Paesi di destinazione Area in negoziazione (ha) Area negoziata (ha)
Algeria Agricoltura Costa d'avorio 300.000 unknown
Libia Agricoltura Mali, Mozambico, Senegal 120.000 29.950
Egitto Agricoltura Sud Sudan, Tanzania, Sudan 141.890 243.785
Israele Agricoltura, foreste,
biocombustibili
Costa d'avorio, Etiopia,
Vietnam, Cambogia,
Colombia
90.000 37.700
Giordania Agricoltura,
allevamento
Sudan 25.000 25.000
Turchia Agricoltura Tanzania, Etiopia 17.000 23.000
Kuwait Agricoltura,
biocombustibili
Sudan 60.702 60.702
Qatar Agricoltura, industria Sudan, Malesia unknown 106.500
Arabia Saudita Agricoltura,
biocombustibili
Turchia, Argentina, Ucraina,
Egitto, Etiopia, Marocco,
Mali, Mauritania, Sudan,
Senegal, Sud Sudan
1.348.024 1.568.218
Emirati Arabi Agricoltura, foreste Pakistan, Filippine, Egitto,
Marocco, Namibia,
Zimbabwe, Sudan, Sud
Sudan, Ghana, Sierra Leone,
Etiopia
451.322 2.819.223
Investors in MENA countries
Fonte: Landmatrix.org 2014

16. The involvement of MENA countries in land deals
Pays investisseursPays destinataires
Colombia
Argentina
Marocco
Mauritania
Senegal
Mali
Etiopia
Sudan
Sud Sudan
Tanzania
Mozambico
ZimbabweNamibia
Pakistan
Cambogia
Vietnam
Filippine
Costa d'avorio
Sierra Leone
Ghana
Algeria Libia
Egitto
Arabia Saudita
Emirati Arabi
Turchia
Malesia
Kuwait
Qatar
Fonte: Landmatrix.org 2014

17. Investment in land of Egypt
Sudan
Sud Sudan
Tanzania
Source: Landmatrix.org 2014

18. A new scenario in the global food market
• Impredictability of global food production due to climatic
change
• Economic and political dependency of food importers from food
exporters
• Water and food security inter-linked strategic issues influencing
the geopolitical equilibrium at national and global scale