Today (Tuesday), Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, made an urgent appeal to double the funding and investments allocated to fill the food gap in the Arab region.

During the Arab ministerial meeting, which he called to discuss "Arab food security and financing" in the presence of Arab agricultural ministers and representatives of financial institutions, unions and the private sector, Aboul Gheit stressed the importance of food security as an integral part of Arab national security.

He pointed to the challenges facing Arab food security, especially after the Corona pandemic revealed the danger of relying on global supply chains, and after the war in Ukraine demonstrated the necessity of preparing for a decline in imports, especially of grains.

The Secretary-General warned of the increasing food gap, currently estimated at more than 100 million tons of food products, affected by a number of interrelated and complex factors, including the increasing population of the Arab world and the decline in rainfall rates in all parts of the Arab world due to climate change, in addition to other influential factors.

Aboul Gheit reviewed the efforts of the League of Arab States to enhance Arab food security, as it prepared a number of strategies and plans related to Arab food security, the latest of which was included in the outcomes of the 2022 Algiers Summit, before adding that “the obstacle of lack of funding prevented the implementation of these Arab plans and strategies.”

He stressed the speed of dealing with these challenges facing Arab food security, and called for activating an Arab financing mechanism that guarantees a permanent flow of capital and encourages investment in sustainable projects that aim to raise Arab capabilities in the fields of clean energy and smart sustainable agriculture.