A World Bank report states that the MENA region faces a deepening crisis of rising food prices. The region's economic growth is projected to slow in 2023, particularly in GCC countries.

How can the deepening crisis caused by slower economic growth and rising food prices in the MENA region be resolved, especially in light of your latest report’s predictions?
There are human and economic costs to rising food prices which may leave socioeconomic scars for generations in the developing MENA economies. Rising food prices may increase food insecurity which, even if temporary, can disrupt the destinies of children, setting them on paths to limited prosperity as adults. About 8 million children in developing MENA economies are forecasted to be food insecure in 2023. In addition, we estimate that food price inflation from March through June 2022 alone raised the number of children at risk of stunting at birth by about 200,000-285,000. 

You expect growth in the GCC to slow to 3.2 percent in 2023 from 7.3 percent in 2022. What factors did you rely on in lowering your expectations?
Growth in 2022 was boosted by the oil windfall in GCC economies, which collectively grew 7.3 percent that year. In 2023, however, as the oil price unwinds, GCC economies are expected to experience the sharpest deceleration among MENA countries with projected growth at 3.2 percent.

Our forecasts assume that the price of oil in 2023 will average $85 per barrel, whereas it averaged $100 per barrel in 2022. The deceleration of growth is expected to be particularly stark in the case of Saudi Arabia, where growth is expected to go from 8.7 percent in 2022 to 2.9 percent in 2023.The UAE and Kuwait are also expected to slow down from 6.6 percent in 2022 to 3.6 percent in 2023 and from 7.9 percent in 2022 to 2.7 percent in 2023 respectively.

How did you conclude that nearly 20 percent of people in developing MENA economies will experience food insecurity in 2023, and how do these numbers vary among countries of the region?  
The food insecurity estimates are based on the FAO Food Insecurity Experience Scale data, which is supplemented with the latest machine learning techniques. This methodology is described in the annex of our report. On average, food insecurity in developing MENA economies has worsened from 11.8 percent in 2006 to 17.6 percent in 2023, primarily due to Syria and Yemen.

Although GCC economies and upper-middle-income MENA economies have lower food insecurity rates, they still perform worse than other high and upper-middle-income economies worldwide. For 2023, severe food insecurity prevalence rates in GCC economies range from 0.9 percent in the UAE to 8.2 percent in Oman, while the average for high-income countries is 1.4 percent. We estimate that nearly 8 million children in developing MENA economies may experience food insecurity in 2023.

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