A study issued by the Arab Monetary Fund showed that about 35.7 million hectares of Arab agricultural land, equivalent to 18 percent of the total arable area, are under the influence of desertification, especially in areas bordering the Sahara African desert. According to the study, 68.4 percent of Arab lands are desertified, 20 percent are threatened by desertification, while non-desertified lands do not exceed 11.6 percent of their total area.
According to the IMF study, entire Arab countries are considered desertified lands, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar, while there are 10 countries with a desertification rate between 60 and 98 percent, such as Egypt, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, and Morocco. Other countries where more than 50 percent of their territory is threatened by desertification, such as Somalia, Syria, and Iraq. This will have profound effects on the budgets of countries in the region, especially the poor, as they struggle on several fronts to mitigate the damage caused by three factors: the repercussions of the health crisis, the war in Ukraine, and climate change.
Source (Al-Arab Newspaper of London, Edited)
