The Future of Development in the MENA Region Rests on Climate Security

Aug 23, 2023 | Kishan Khoday
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The climate crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, posing an existential threat to the future of civilization. At 1.2°C of warming, we are already witnessing how climate change is causing extensive loss and damage around the world, aggravating food, water, and livelihood insecurity, and threatening to reverse development trends in many countries and communities.

These impacts also exacerbate social tensions, conflict, and displacement, something that is particularly important in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as it finds itself in an unprecedented era of multidimensional crises. The most water-scarce, food import-dependent region, MENA is now a global climate hotspot with temperatures rising twice as fast as the global average. Across the region, record drought cycles, forest fires, floods, and land degradation have impacted food and water security, triggered mass rural-to-urban displacement, and have contributed to a rapid rise in poverty and social vulnerability.

But many of the countries that have emerged as climate impact hotspots in the region are also flashpoints of conflict and displacement. That is not a coincidence. Climate change impacts contributed to the Arab uprisings a decade ago, as the region experienced its worst drought in close to 1,000 years from 2006 to 2010. Since then, climate change impacts have continued to accelerate and are now a central factor in the region’s complex and protracted state of fragility. Climate change is thus central to the poly-crisis that has beset the region in recent years.

As the crisis has expanded, the need for more effective development and humanitarian cooperation has also grown. Over the past decade, UNDP has doubled its level of cooperation in the MENA region to help communities manage risk and build resilience, through a climate security lens. Today, with a US$300 million portfolio for local action initiatives and over $1 billion of co-financing from public and private partners, this represents the United Nation’s largest grant-based offer of assistance for advancing a green transition in the region.