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A joint report from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Bank found out that water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa could be either a destabilizing factor or a driving force for communities to get closer together, and it only depends on the adopted policies to deal with this growing challenge.
The report "Water Management in Fragile Systems: Building resilience to the shocks and crises in the Middle East and North Africa," warns that instability coupled with poor water management can turn into a vicious cycle that exacerbate social tensions, ensuring that what is needed to break this cycle can also be key elements of recovery and enhancing stability.
The report calls for a shift of focus from current policies to increase water resources’ supplies on the long-term, taking into consideration that climate-related scarcity is expected to cause economic losses by 2050, estimated at 6 and 14 percent of GDP, making it the highest in the world.
Source: (Al Sharq Al Awsat Newspaper, Edited)