Israeli-Arab Cooperation on Agriculture, Water, and Food Security Starts with Building on Existing Innovations

Mar 31, 2023 | Daniel B. Shapiro
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The N7 Conference on Agriculture, Water, and Food Security—which I helped organize—convened in Abu Dhabi on March 14-16 with participants from each of the N7 countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They were joined by attendees from Tunisia, Indonesia, and Burkina Faso, extending far beyond the Middle East and North Africa region. Plus, for the first time, an N7 Conference included Palestinian participation.

Water scarcity, the challenges of desert agriculture, and food insecurity are problems that are common to all these countries. Even so, this was the first opportunity for all of them to come together to discuss how to tackle these issues.

Eliminating food waste is another area that calls for regional approaches. Most N7 countries have some programs—either government- or private-sponsored—to rescue food that would otherwise rot or be discarded. 

What this participation tells us is that officials charged with managing relationships in the region see value in the work of such Track 1.5 conferences—that is, including government officials in an unofficial capacity along with non-governmental experts.