NEAR EAST AND NORTH AFRICA Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2024: Statistics and trends

This report covers 22 Arab States: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The 22 Arab States include 19 Near East and North Africa (NENA) countries as well as three additional Arab States: Djibouti, Comoros and Somalia.

Concerning the country groupings, FAO uses the 2023 World Bank income groups, available at https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups

The groupings are:

• high-income economies: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates;
• lower-middle-income economies: Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia;
• low-income economies: Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen; and
• upper-middle-income economies: Iraq, Libya, Palestine.

In addition, the following groupings are used for information purposes:

• Arab States LDCs: Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen;
• Countries affected by conflict: Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Yemen; and
• Countries not affected by conflict: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates.

Palestine and Lebanon remain in the group of countries not affected by conflict as all the data presented for it in this report go up to 2022 or, in the case of food insecurity, reflect the situation before the conflict erupted in October 2023. Otherwise, the categorization of countries affected and not affected by conflict follows previous reports of the “Near East and North Africa – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition” from the years 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The categorization of countries as being affected or not affected by conflict used in this report is determined by the FAO Regional Office for Near East and North Africa and is not necessarily aligned with the classification used in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report 2024.

The definition of countries affected by climate extremes and economic downturns as well as countries with high income inequality follows the classification used in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report 2024 as defined in the supplementary materials for Chapter 3.