Food Policy and Food Security Challenges in the Middle East and North Africa Region

Abstract

Food policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) focuses on food security challenges in the region. Individuals, households, countries, and the whole region face an alarming level of food insecurity due to the unrest and political instability in the last decade. Due to the large geographical, climatic, economic system, and natural resource base variabilities in the region there is no one policy that fits all the countries in the region. Examples of policies discussed in this article included food self-sufficiency policy, exports support policy (trade openness), and outward looking food policy that consider the four dimensions of food security. These four dimensions are food availability (food supply), access to food (e.g., food distribution), food stability (e.g., price stability and citizen income affordability), and food utilization (e.g., food processing). Successful food policy formulation is the one that considers the multidimensional nature of food security in the region. This article considers both economic indicators as well as nutritional food quality indicators and population access to food quality indicators to analyze MENA region levels of food insecurity and possible ramifications that may be considered by policy makers.