Dry Aquifers in Arab Countries and the Looming Food Crisis
This article was published in the December
2008 issue of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA).
Abstract
As water volumes in Arab lands dwindle, as per capita income in the large and heavily populated non-oil producing states remains low and narrowly diversified, as high population growth rates persist, a food disaster will sooner or later strike. These countries will have neither the water to grow the food they need, nor the exports to earn the foreign currencies to import the food they require. This paper recommends that the affected economies should grow and diversify. To that end, scarce economic resources should be allocated according to rate of return criterion and population growth rates cut substantially. Also, Arab oil exporters should create a giant “peace fund” to provide their poor neighbors with grants to help them out of poverty.
Introduction
To set the stage, certain facts need to be stated. First, foodstuffs
are an encapsulation of water, virtual water. Generally, 1,000 tons of
water (1,000 cubic meters (m3)) are needed to produce a ton of wheat,
and 16,000 m3 of water is needed to produce a ton of red meat.[1]
Further, a ton of rice requires 3,400 m3 of water to grow; a slice of
bread, 40 liters (kilograms); a cup of tea, 30 liters; an apple, 70
liters; and a glass of beer, 75 liters. It follows that the composition
of one's diet determines the volume of water embedded in the food
consumed. The more meat in a diet, especially red meat, the more water
an individual consumes. The term virtual water and food will be used in
this paper interchangeably.
Second, an individual requires one
cubic meter of drinking water per annum, between 50 and 100 m3 for
other domestic uses, and about 1,000 m3 of water to raise the food
requirement of that individual.[2] At the national level, over 90 per cent of the water needed by an individual or the economy provides one's food needs.[3] This water can either be local or "imported" in the form of virtual water.
THE WATER CHALLENGE The
following table shows the food self-sufficiency ratio of the nine most
populous Arab countries, per capita gross domestic product (GDP), and
the degree of reliance on the agricultural sector. Saudi Arabia is
classified separately due to its wealth relative to the other countries
in the table and to its unique unsuccessful experiment in desert
agriculture, as will be addressed later in this article.
Country
(1) |
Agricultural share of annual freshwater withdrawal (billion m3)
(2)
|
Annual water for cotton (billion m3)
(3) |
Annual water for foodstuffs
(billion m3)
(4) = (2- 3) |
Annual virtual water needs
(billion m3)
(5)= population size x 1,000 m3) (a) |
Food self-sufficiency %
(6) = (4/5) |
Per capita GDP @ official rates ($)
(7) |
Labor force in agriculture %
(8) |
Algeria |
6x65% = 4 |
- |
4 |
34 |
14% |
3.880 |
14% |
Egypt |
68x86% = 58 |
3 (b) |
55 |
82 |
67% |
1.560 |
32% |
Iraq |
43x92% = 40 |
- |
40 |
28 |
143% |
1.965 |
NA |
Morocco |
13x87% = 11 |
- |
11 |
34 |
32% |
2.150 |
40% |
Syria |
20x95% = 19 |
4 (c) |
15 |
19 |
79% |
2.000 |
32% (d) |
Sudan |
37x97% = 36 |
- |
36 |
40 |
90% |
1.250 |
80% |
Tunisia |
2.6x82% = 2 |
- |
2 |
11 |
18% |
3.300
|
55% |
Yemen |
7x95% = 6 |
- |
6 |
28 |
21% |
960 |
NA |
Total |
176 |
7 |
169 |
276 |
60% |
1.953 |
|
Saudi Arabia |
17x89% = 15 |
- |
15 |
28 |
54% |
13.400 |
12% |
Source: Unless noted otherwise, the data in the table are from CIA World Factbook. Most of the data are for 2007, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html.
(a)
Since an individual requires about 1,000 cubic meters of water per
annum to raise the food requirement of that individual, the annual
volume of water embedded in the food requirements of the entire
population of a country would be equal to the size of the population x
1,000 m3.
(b) UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, 2005, "The Water Footprint of Cotton Consumption," p. 15, http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report18.pdf.
(c) The World Bank (WB), Rural Development, Water and Environment Group, Middle East and North Africa Region, Syrian Arab Republic Irrigation Sector Report, No. 22602, (Washington D.C., WB, August 6, 2001), Table A. 12, p. 58.
(d)
One quarter of Syria's labor force is engaged in agriculture plus one
half of the manufacturing workforce is dependent on agriculture for
employment (Ibid, p. ix).
The table invites three
observations: First, although the ratio of food self-sufficiency varies
from one country to another the overall average ratio is rather low: 60
percent. Second, with an average per capita GDP of less than $1,950 per
annum the Arab region outside the oil producing countries is
characterized as poor. Third, the degree of reliance on the
agricultural sector by Arab labor is significant; more so for the
population as a whole since rural families typically have more children
than urban families.[4]
In
this article, the inefficient investment that Saudi Arabia and Syria
undertook in irrigation and agricultural development in the recent
decades and Egypt's perilous course in hydropolitics will be discussed.
Solutions will be advocated, particularly the allocation of scarce
resources according to rate of return on investment criterion and the
establishment of a giant "peace fund" by the oil-exporters of the
Arabian Peninsula to alleviate poverty among their neighboring poor.
Saudi
Arabia, Syria, and Egypt represent useful case studies to ponder. The
three countries demonstrate that in spite of the profound differences
among Arab monarchies and republics in types of governance, ideologies,
political agendas, natural resources, and climate conditions, they
nonetheless share in common national decisionmaking processes that
produced financially wasteful and environmentally damaging strategies.
These case studies approximate sociopolitical models found in other
Arab monarchies and republics.
Saudi Arabia's Agricultural Project: From Dust to Dust
Saudi
Arabia's desert agriculture confirms that money and water can make even
a desert bloom until either the money runs out or the water is depleted.[5]
Saudi Arabia's experience is noteworthy because within 15 years, the
country experienced shortages of both money and later, water. These
shortages impacted negatively on the country's heralded commitment to
desert agriculture.
In 1993, Saudi Arabia suffered financial
strains, so its cereal-growing program of the previous twelve years was
scaled down drastically. Then, in early 2008, as the quality and
quantity of non-renewable aquifers reached perilous levels, the
government declared that purchases of wheat from local farmers would be
reduced by 12.5 percent annually, with the aim of relying entirely on
imports by 2016.[6]
Farming
is alien to desert habitat and the culture of its peoples. As Saudi
Arabia became rich following the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973,
however, Saudi investors were induced by huge government subsidies to
import the equipment and the farm workers to implement a heavily
propagated strategy of food self-sufficiency. Within 12 years, between
1980 and 1992, wheat production grew 29-fold--to 4.1 million tons[7]--making the Saudi desert the world's sixth-largest wheat exporting country.[8] To achieve this enormous growth, the wheat-producing areas were increased by 14-fold, to 924,000 hectares.[9]
To put 924,000 hectares in perspective, Egypt, with five times as many
people, has an irrigated surface for all crops evolved over the
centuries of 3 million hectares.[10] Beginning in 1993, under pressure from declining oil prices since the mid 1980s,[11]
the government had to scale down its wheat-growing subsidies. The
budget deficits between 1984 and 1992 added up to $130 billion.[12]
Liquidity became so tight that the government had to delay (default)
for a few years in honoring more than $70 billion in obligations to
thousands of suppliers, contractors, and farmers.[13] Between 1981 and 1993, spending on security added up to $225 billion, out of $420 billion in total oil revenues.[14] In addition, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War cost $25.7 billion,[15] the 1991 Gulf War cost $80 billion,[16]
and maintaining the profligate lifestyle of some 4,000 immediate
members during that period of the al-Saud ruling family's patriarch may
be estimated to have cost $4 billion per annum.[17]
Within four years, by the end of 1996, 76 percent of the new wheat-growing surface was abandoned.[18] Wheat production dropped by 70 percent.[19] By 2000, barley production, too, dropped by 94 percent.[20]
The estimated financial cost of this venture between 1984 and 2000 was around $100 billion,[21] excluding a number of unquantifiable subsidies.[22]
If these subsidies were added, the overall spending might have doubled
and the cost of wheat doubled to $1,000 per ton. The international
price for wheat during that period averaged $120 a ton.[23]
As
for the cost in terms of water, between 1980 and 1999, a gargantuan
volume of water--300 billion cubic meters, the equivalent to six years
flow of the Nile River into Egypt--was used. Such volume translates to
around 15 billion cubic meters per annum--equivalent to the volume of
water that Syria and Iraq combined receives from the Euphrates River.
Two-thirds of the water thus used is regarded as nonrenewable,
according to estimates by the Ministry of Agriculture and Water.[24]
At this rate, it does not need to be a genius to predict that if the
extraction does not stop, the non-renewable water reserves will sooner
or later be depleted. The January 2008 announcement confirms this
reality. This dramatic rise and equally dramatic fall of Saudi
cereal production reflected haphazard planning and a failed,
politically determined economic and ecological policy created by poorly
informed elite enjoying rentier economic circumstances. This experience
proved merely that throwing out money and water could make even a
desert bloom, until either the money or the water ran out.
Food
independence is impossible for a country like Saudi Arabia. A
population of about 28 million requires about 28 billion m3 of water
annually to grow its food needs. However, as the above table shows,
Saudi Arabia extracts 15 billion m3, or 54 percent. Eventually, the
irrigated lands from non-renewable water sources will be abandoned and
the investments written off.
A country like Saudi Arabia would be
better off to stop desert irrigation altogether in order to spare its
remaining water for drinking and household purposes for future
generations. Saudi Arabia and the other five members of the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC); Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab
Emirates, are fortunate in that oil revenues will enable them to import
foodstuffs; at least until alternative energy sources will be found or
until the oil gets depleted and the financial reserves dissipated.
The Syrian Government: A Bad Farmer
Unlike
Saudi Arabia, agriculture in Syria has for millennia supported large
population centers and produced thriving civilizations along rivers and
coastal areas. Of Syria's landmass (185,000 sq. km), 25 percent is
arable.[25]
Spending
by the Syrian government on irrigation and agricultural development has
been substantial but inefficient. Beginning in 1960, the eight
five-year plans that followed invested about $20 billion on the
agricultural sector (at the official foreign exchange rates of that
period).[26] Three-quarters of the investment was made between 1988 and 2000.[27]
However, the results have not been brilliant; 550,000 hectares, or 45
percent of the country's total irrigated surface, were added during
this period, of which the government contributed 138,000 hectares[28]
and the private sector developed the rest. Ninety percent of the
138,000 hectares (124,000 hectares) was in the salt-affected and
drainage-poor Euphrates Basin--gypsum in the soil caused the irrigation
networks to collapse. In the Euphrates Basin 43 percent of the land was
identified by the World Bank as having drainage problems or potential
to develop problems in the future.[29]
The
government started in 1968 building the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates
River. Made in the Syrian national discourse as one of the government's
proudest achievements, the Tabqa Dam failed to achieve its targets. The
plan was for the dam to increase by 2000 the irrigated surface in the
Euphrates Basin by 640,000 hectares.[30] By 2000, only 124,000 hectares, or 19 percent of the target had been achieved.[31] Land reclamation cost was high, estimated at $25,700 per hectare.[32]
At such costs, it would be practically impossible to make a reasonable
rate of return on the investment. A 10 percent return translates to
$2,570 per hectare, over and above the cost of production.
The Tabqa Dam wastes a huge volume of water to evaporation, estimated at 1.6 billion m3 annually.[33]
While this volume could theoretically satisfy the drinking and
household water needs of Syria's 19 million inhabitants, most cities
have been suffering severe water shortages for years, including the
capital Damascus, which suffers daily water shut-offs during the
blazing summer months lasting over fifteen hours.
The loss of
water to evaporation is all the more significant in light of Turkey's
50 percent cut in the flow of the Euphrates River into Syria and Iraq,
which resulted from the construction of the huge GAP project in eastern
Turkey. Turkey reduced the flow to Syria and Iraq to 500 m3 per second
in accordance with a protocol for the distribution of the river's
waters signed on July 17, 1987. Turkey started construction of the
Keban Dam in 1966, two years before Tabqa's start of construction.[34]
The
non-financial returns from the government's emphasis on investment in
agriculture were poor as well. Under Syria's vulnerable economic
circumstances and despite the government's commitment to the welfare of
the agricultural sector, the migration from rural communities to urban
centers continued. The ratio of rural to total population has declined
since 1961, from 63 percent to 48 percent in 2000.[35]
Reliance on capricious rainfall was not reduced either. In 1989, wheat
production was 1 million tons; in 1995, it jumped to 4.2 million tons;
in 1999, it dropped to 2.7 million tons; and in 2007, it increased to
4.5 million tons.[36] Estimates for 2008 are for a harvest of around 2.5 million tons.
Over-extraction
of groundwater has deteriorated Syria's environment seriously.
Irrigation extractions beyond the volume of renewable water have led to
negative balances in five out the country's seven basins,[37] thus reducing the quantity and degrading the quality of the remaining water reserves.[38]
Like
Saudi Arabia, food independence is impossible for a country like Syria
to achieve. Syria's population of about 19 million requires about 19
billion m3 of water annually to grow its food needs. Yet as the above
table shows, Syria can provide only 15 billion m3 from irrigation and
rain combined. The gap will get bigger as Syria's population grows.
The
World Bank concluded that Syria's government "will need to recognize
that achieving food security with respect to wheat and other cereals in
the short-term as well as the encouragement of water-intensive cotton
appear to be undermining Syria's security over the long-term by
depleting available groundwater resources."[39] Of Syria's 13 billion m3 in irrigation water use, almost a third (4 billion m3) is used in cotton irrigation.[40]
In spite of these difficulties, a Ministry of Irrigation Strategy
report revealed Syria's commitment to increasing the irrigated surface
between 2000 and 2020 by 493,000 hectares in five of the country's
seven basins; 181,000 hectares of which in the Euphrates Basin.[41]
Eventually,
with continued water over-extraction, irrigated lands will be
abandoned, investments written off, and food production halted. Coupled
with Syria's narrow GDP diversification and dearth in foreign currency
sources from exports, food imports would become increasingly difficult
to afford. Whenever this happens, the negative impact on rural
communities and societal order could be shattering. A country
like Syria would be better off beginning to focus its efforts on
investment in export industries in order to generate sufficient foreign
currencies to buy food in the future instead of continuing to invest in
white elephant irrigation schemes.
Lessons from Saudi Arabia and Syria
From
the above, it may be concluded that money and water can make a desert
bloom until either the money or the water runs out. Food
self-sufficiency in arid and semi-arid countries like Saudi Arabia and
Syria is more of a romantic dream than a reasoned strategy. The above
table shows that slogans and political economics aside, food
self-sufficiency in Arab countries is impossible to attain or sustain.
Growing populations and insufficient water resources make such a
strategy unrealistic.
Currently, the overall ratio of Arab food
self-sufficiency is 60 percent. As the size of the population grows,
the ratio will progressively decline. The overall deficit of 40 percent
has been covered through food imports, quietly. Importing foodstuffs
runs in the face of the well-propagated slogan of food independence, so
the government-controlled media ignores discussing food imports.
Except
for Iraq, the food self-sufficiency ratio of every country in the table
is negative. The ratio ranges from as little as 14 percent for Algeria,
18 percent for Tunisia, 21 percent for Yemen, 32 percent for Morocco to
as much as 90 percent for Sudan, 79 percent for Syria, and 67 percent
for Egypt. By 2050, the region's population is expected to grow by
two-thirds.[42]
By that time, even if water volumes do not decrease--a big if--the
overall food self-sufficiency ratio in Arab countries will decline to
around 35 percent.
Under the arid and semi-arid conditions of the
Arab world an economist would argue that it would be beneficial to
import foodstuffs instead of investing in financially and
environmentally non-viable local farming schemes. An economist would
also argue that farming in arid or semi-arid areas should be left to
rain fed lands. Given that drinking and household water use in every
country is typically one tenth the volume of the water needed to become
food self-sufficient, it would be necessary to stop further depletion
of non-renewable water reserves by abandoning irrigation schemes so
that the remaining water may be preserved for drinking and household
purposes. International "trade" in virtual water allows water-scarce
countries to import high water using foodstuffs and export low water
using manufactured products.
However, importing foodstuffs gives
rise to three challenges. The first is national security. Importing
foodstuffs runs contrary to the popular notion in Arab countries that
food self-sufficiency protects national security from the dangers of a
boycott. Government propagandists succeeded in incorporating this
fallacy into the national discourse. They made it into a sacrosanct
belief without regard to their severe water shortage or the fact that
they import many items, the boycott of any of which would be as
detrimental to national security as the boycott of foodstuffs, if not
more; such as, to name only a few, desalination plants, medical
equipment, pharmaceuticals, spare parts, etc.
Failure to address
critical issues like water scarcity openly and truthfully is not
surprising under non-representative non-participatory governance. Such
type of rule bans free press, egalitarian non-governmental
organizations, and environmental groups--thus, making it impossible to
have effective dissent against the mendacity of food independence in a
mainly arid region or introduce a balancing perspective into water
policy. The second challenge is the difficulty in generating
the foreign exchange needed to pay for food imports. While foreign
exchange is not an issue for the time being in the underdeveloped but
rich economies of the Arab oil producers, securing foreign currencies
is a major problem to the underdeveloped and poor economies of the
non-oil rich states where more than 90 percent of the Arab population
lives.
The third challenge is the negative effect that virtual
water imports have on rural employment. While farming in the oil-rich
desert states is an aberration and expatriate workers do the work, in
semi-arid societies the land is the only source of livelihood for
millions. While abandoning farming in the oil-rich desert states would
mean sending the foreign workers back to their countries of origin,
virtual water "trade" by poor arid/semi-arid countries would cause
severe dislocations to rural communities, typically suffering from
little or no alternative work opportunities. Economic and labor
immobility causes governments to make politically convenient decisions
despite their financial inefficiency and environmental damage in order
to avoid societal unrest.
Failure to export low-water using
goods, to enhance non-farm employment opportunities in rural areas, and
to cut population growth rates substantially will prolong dependency on
irrigation water. Failure in these areas, as the case of Egypt below
will illustrate, transforms transboundary rivers into sources of
conflict, even war. By contrast, in an economy that is rich, well
diversified, and abundant in foreign currency earnings, like that of
Israel, for example, water scarcity should be of little consequence.
Egypt's Hydropolitics: A Perilous Course
With
a per capita income of $1,560 in 2007 (at official rates), Egypt is
poor. It is desperately dependent on irrigation water. It cannot easily
generate the foreign currencies to import additional foodstuffs. It
also suffers from economic and labor immobility and rapid population
growth. Over the past 50 years, Egypt's population has more than
tripled to 82 million, representing more than a quarter of the Arab
world's population today. By 2050, Egypt's population is expected to
reach 160 million people.[43]
Like
Saudi Arabia and Syria, food independence is impossible for a country
like Egypt. With a population of 82 million, Egypt needs some 82
billion m3 of water to grow the food it needs to make it food
self-sufficient. Yet as the above table indicates, Egypt's annual water
volume from the Nile River for foodstuffs is 55 billion m3. The
difference of 27 billion m3 is "imported" in the form of foodstuffs,
quietly. The future promises that more virtual water "trade" will
become necessary, as Egypt's population continues to grow.
The
Nile is critical for Egypt, a matter of life and death. The Nile
supplies almost all of Egypt's fresh water. A 1959 agreement between
Egypt and Sudan allocated the Nile's annual flow of 84 billion m3,
minus 10 billion m3 for evaporation from Lake Nasser, on the basis of
75 percent for Egypt--or 55.5 billion m3 per annum--and 25 percent for
Sudan--or, 18.5 billion m3 per annum. The agreement was reached without
acquiescence or involvement of the other eight riparian countries.
Egypt's entire freshwater supply originates outside its borders,
raising troubling national security threats to Egyptians. The Nile
flows into Egypt via Sudan from Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Eritrea.
Egypt's
difficult economic circumstances expose its national security to the
irrigation actions of its upstream riparians. Consequently, the
government of Egypt has threatened its upstream riparian countries with
war if the Nile waters were to decline as a result of irrigation
projects in those countries. The threat is synonymous with Egypt
decreeing that upstream countries in the Nile basin must not engage in
irrigation projects to feed their hungry population so that Egypt's
water allotment is preserved. As a case in point, Ethiopia provides
around 55 billion m3 of the Nile's annual flow, or around two thirds of
the flow to Sudan and Egypt. Ethiopia has 200,000 irrigated hectares
out of a potential 3.7 million hectares of irrigable land. With a
population nearly the size of Egypt, and facing problems in sustaining,
Ethiopia will need to develop a large portion of this land for
agricultural use. If Ethiopia irrigates only 500,000 hectares, for
example, the flow of the Nile to Sudan and Egypt will drop by 6.25
billion m3 per annum.[44]
Furthermore,
Egypt's water woes could be exacerbated by the possible effects of
global warming on the flow of the Nile from less rain and increased
evaporation. Abject poverty and hunger/famine, which afflict Egypt's
nine upstream riparian countries, combined with Egypt's own poverty and
economic plight make it reasonable to predict that it is only a matter
of time before violent conflict erupts over the Nile's waters, unless
remedial action is taken.
A Way Forward
To avert
conflict with its riparian neighbors, Egypt has little choice but to
reduce its water use and to focus on growing and diversifying its GDP.
Especially important here is the development of industries that produce
low water using goods for export and provide employment alternatives to
farming in rural areas. Such industries would also generate the foreign
currencies needed to import high water using foodstuffs instead of
growing the food at home.
A number of measures
can grow per capita GDP and diversify its sources, including, cutting
the rate of population growth, adopting water conservation
targets--especially reducing the red meat content in people's diet--and
allocating scarce economic resources efficiently according to rate of
return on investment criterion.
In what follows, the efficient
allocation of scarce economic resources will be discussed, followed by
a proposal for the establishment of a giant peace fund by the
oil-exporters of the Arabian Peninsula to provide grants to augment the
national saving/investment of their poor neighbors to help lift them
grow and diversify their economies in order to escape poverty.
EFFICIENT ALLOCATION OF SCARCE ECONOMIC RESOURCES
In
allocating scarce national resources, an economist would argue against
investing in any project unless justified on a purely rate of return on
investment basis. Irrigation and land reclamation projects are no
exception. These must be evaluated according to their rate of return on
investment with full costing of water that ensures maintaining the
quantity and quality of the aquifers and accounting for the negative
and positive externalities of production and consumption. A rate of
return approach diverts the foreign currencies that would otherwise be
allocated to irrigation and land reclamation to higher return
investments. In the export and/or import-substitution industries, such
diversion would increase foreign currency earnings, which would then be
used to import food. A rate of return on investment criterion would
diversify GDP sources. The diversification would enhance employment
opportunities in rural areas and mitigate the negative effects of food
imports on rural employment. A rate of return approach invests
taxpayers' money in more rewarding projects for the country as a whole,
not to one segment of the population at the expense of the others. A
rate of return on investment criterion can help steer GDP on a path of
optimal growth. Given their low per capita income, relatively
low labor costs provide Arab labor markets with a comparative advantage
in cost of production. Comparative advantage in production cost leads
to specialization and competitiveness in world markets. It is no
accident that Japan leads the world in the export of electronics,
Switzerland in expensive watches, and the United States in computer
software.
Other approaches to scarce resource allocation are
inefficient because of the ethical, ideological, and emotional bias
that typically influence decisionmakers and are often driven by narrow
personal interests. Such debates could be particularly intense when
dealing with water issues, which impinge on poor sections of the
population as well as on the environmental services provided by water.
Important matters and decisions include: How much taxpayer money should
be invested in dams and irrigation? What volume of non-renewable
groundwater ought to be extracted? Should the water be used to supply
householders or irrigation, or for which crops should it be used and
where? Last, how much water, if any, should be conserved for
environmental protection or for future generations?
Applying a
rate of return criterion makes water extraction and delivery a central
factor in the cost of production. This issue is controversial. It
represents a departure from attitudes developed as a result of poverty
and age-old customary practices that expect water to be free of charge.
However, population explosion in Arab lands, combined today with
insufficient water resources must bring new realism into ancient
expectations and practices.
A "Peace Fund" by Arab Oil States
Per
capita income in the Arab world outside the GCC is low--less than
$2,000 a year. The web of political and commercial risks in these
markets dissuades foreign private sector investors from risking their
capital there. The gap between the investment funds needed to achieve a
desired GDP growth rate and the economy's ability to generate the
necessary saving to underwrite this investment must be sourced from
abroad. GCC states should be the source. These states have a security
interest in doing so. They also have a moral obligation to live up to
and obey the Islamic injunctions they flaunt.
The indigenous
population of the six GCC states is around 20 million, about the size
of the population of Cairo. Aside from Saudi Arabia, where 75 percent
live, the native-born populations of each GCC state are less than the
inhabitants of a single street in Baghdad, Cairo, or Damascus.
Additionally, GCC states host about 25 million expatriate workers.
These include the domestic servants, maids, and chauffeurs in almost
every home; the laborers on construction sites, farms, and municipal
services; as well as the teachers, engineers, physicians and nurses,
etc. Expatriate workers have built GCC infrastructure and glittering
cities. They keep Gulf communities functioning from producing the oil
bonanza to sweeping the streets, in return for miserly wages for most,
inhumane living conditions, slave-like treatment, and a negligible
proportion of the GDP that they generate. GCC states produce
about 17 million barrels of oil per day, valued in 2007 at more than
$600 billion. Much of this staggering sum is spent on unproductive
pursuits, if past patterns are any guide. As seen above, Saudi Arabia
spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons and security, on
unsustainable desert irrigation schemes, and on the profligate
lifestyle of the ruling family. The five tiny GCC neighbors have spent
enormous amounts of money on symbols of statehood to demonstrate their
legitimacy and sovereignty. These city-states wasted enormous amounts
of money on procuring state-of-the-art weapons (which they cannot keep
functioning without American and European experts), on huge magnificent
airports--sometimes only a few kilometers from one another--on half a
dozen local airlines, on elaborate diplomatic missions around the
globe, etc. The ruling elites in these communities compete with each
other on who owns the grander palace, flies the bigger private Airbus
or Boeing, sails the more extravagant yacht, and flaunts the larger
golf course--all while poverty, dilapidated unsafe primitive public
utilities, disease, and illiteracy afflict the millions of Arab and
Muslim brethren nearby.
A financial aid fund or "peace fund"
would provide grants, not loans, to the poor neighbors of the GCC
states. The fund would invest in schools, libraries, laboratories,
hospitals, roads, ports, airports, telecommunication networks, water
and sanitation infrastructure, etc. Such projects would reduce
chronically high unemployment rates, improve workers' skills, enhance
economic growth, and lead to greater saving, which in turn would spur a
new cycle of economic growth that would be self-perpetuating. At a 25
percent contribution into the proposed peace fund, a sum of $150
billion in 2007would be available to lift millions out of poverty,
disease, and frustration.
For the "peace fund" to succeed, the
recipient governments must develop good governance structures that
ensure transparency and accountability and allocate national resources
efficiently. Investing in education and health, for example, must take
precedence over purchasing weapons. That officials in the beneficiary
countries might misappropriate (steal) the aid funds is no excuse to
abandon the peace fund concept. The World Bank could manage such a
program to ensure the viability of the projects and the correctness of
the disbursements. That most GCC members have locally managed
development aid organizations is no substitute for the peace fund. The
resources of these aid organizations are woefully inadequate, and they
are politically motivated, often doing more in propaganda value for
their owners than help the poor.
Why be so generous? The answer
is that unless regional poverty is alleviated, a ticking food bomb
threatens the fantasy world of GCC living with conflict and
instability. The threat of starving hordes bordering those dazzling
palaces, skyscrapers, seven-star hotels, and ice-skating rinks should
spur Arab royals to start helping to lift their neighbors from abject
poverty. Indeed, the Koran implores Muslims to be helpful to their
neighbors (Koran, 4:36), and GCC rulers have made Islam a state
ideology and a divine way of life. Being faithful to the Koran will
make them less hypocritical. Self interest aside, the peace
fund should be seen from a moral viewpoint--a form of reparation
payments for the cruelty wreaked by GCC societies upon the tens of
millions of guest workers who have worked there since the quadrupling
of oil prices in October 1973. That the foreign workers accepted to
work for miserly wages and put up with slave-like treatment does not
absolve the wrongdoers of moral responsibility or justify their
exploitation of hapless laborers in strange lands. It follows that the
peace fund should benefit all foreign labor providers to GCC states,
especially the major labor providers such as Bangladesh, Egypt, India,
Indonesia, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
Looking into the
long-term, the peace fund should also be regarded by GCC citizens as a
down-payment of goodwill to be used when oil ceases to be the world's
prime source of energy or when the oil reserves run out and the
financial reserves dissipate. Although such an eventuality might be
decades away, the consequences of whenever it materializes would be
catastrophic to contemplate. A century or two are like fleeting moments
in the context of the long sweep of history.
Over the millennia,
a limited sized population could survive in the harsh Arabian Desert.
As late as 1960, the population of Saudi Arabia was around four million
and the rest of the Peninsula, excluding Yemen, had less than a
million. During the 1960s, travelers to GCC capital cities recall
pathetically poor and primitive living conditions. Today, the Arabian
Peninsula artificially accommodates 45 million people (excluding Yemen)
through desalinated water and the importation of every necessity and
luxury. When oil loses its value and the financial reserves are
depleted, the expatriate workers will go home, the glitzy skyscrapers
will rust, and most of the natives will want to migrate. History
suggests that they would wish to settle in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and
Egypt. One historic migration is notable here. Following the death of
Muhammad in 632, poor Bedouins quickly fanned out of Arabia in the name
of Islam and settled, with the help of the sword, in Syria, Egypt, and
Iraq.
While the numbers of those involved in previous migrations
were relatively small--possibly thousands or tens of thousands--the
next migration would involve millions of people. Over a relatively
short period of time, for example, the next four decades, the
indigenous GCC population could double to 40 million (at an annual
growth rate of 1.5 percent). With such numbers, only a sizable
reservoir of past goodwill can help those who would hope to take refuge
among their brethren to the north and the west.
SOURCES
[1]
Tony Allan, "Virtual Water--Economically Invisible and Politically
Silent--A Way to Solve Strategic Water Problems," International Water
& Irrigation, Vol. 21, No. 4 (2001), p. 39.
[2] Tony Allan, The Middle East Water Question Hydropolitics and the Global Economy (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), p. 6.
[3] Ibid.
[4]
In Syria, for example, the average number of children considered ideal
in rural areas was about six, and about four in Damascus. M. El-Jabi
and A. R. Omran, "Family Formation and Social Characteristics: Syrian
Arab Republic," http://www.popline.org/docs/007300.
[5] For more
on Saudi Arabia's agricultural experiment see: Elie Elhadj , Middle
East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), Saudi Arabia's
Agricultural Project: From Dust to Dust, Vol. 12, No. 2 (June 2008),
http://www.meriajournal.com/en/asp/journal/2008/june/elhadj/index.asp.
[6]
"Saudi Scraps Wheat Growing to Save Water," Reuters, January 8, 2008,
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL08699206.
[7]
Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Forty-Third Annual Report (2007),
p. 379,
http://www.sama.gov.sa/en/publications/annualrep/43annualrep_en.pdf.
[8] Alan Richards and John Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998), p. 160.
[9] SAMA, Forty-Third Annual Report, p. 378.
[10] FAO Statistical Database.
[11] Historical Crude Oil Prices (Table), http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp.
[12] SAMA, Forty-Third Annual Report, p. 293.
[13] Saudi American Bank, The Saudi Economy in 2002 (Riyadh: Saudi American Bank, February 2003), p. 16.
[14] SAMA, Forty-Third Annual Report, pp. 290-93.
[15]
According to the late King Fahd. See Madawi al-Rasheed, A History of
Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 157.
[16]
According to the Saudi Minister of Interior. See "Gulf War Cost Riyadh
$80 Billions: Prince Naif," Arab News, September 27, 2002.
[17]
Elie Elhadj, Experiments in Achieving Water and Food Self-Sufficiency
in the Middle East: The Consequences of Contrasting Endowments,
Ideologies, and Investment Policies in Saudi Arabia and Syria, Ph.D.
Dissertation, London University, School of Oriental and African
Studies, 2006, p. 30.
[18] SAMA, Forty-Third Annual Report, p. 378.
[19] Ibid, p. 379.
[20] Ibid, pp. 378-79.
[21] Elhadj, Experiments in Achieving Water and Food Self-Sufficiency in the Middle East, pp. 81-82.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Altukhais, "Future Vision for the Saudi Economy 2020," p. 3.
[25]Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html.
[26] Elhadj, Experiments in Achieving Water and Food Self-Sufficiency in the Middle East, p. 33.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid, p. 126.
[29] The World Bank, 2001, Table 5, pp. 12, 31.
[30]
Joanne Maher (ed.), The Middle East and Africa 2002,48th
Edition(London: Europa Publications, Taylor & Francis Group, 2002),
p. 973.
[31] Elhadj, Experiments in Achieving Water and Food Self-Sufficiency in the Middle East, pp. 126-27.
[32] Ibid, p. 128.
[33] Ibid, p. 141.
[34] Ibid, p. 172.
[35] Ibid, pp. 137-38.
[36] FAOStat, http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=567#ancor.
[37] Ministry of Irrigation, Strategy of Work at the Irrigation Ministry, (Damascus: Ministry of Irrigation,2001), p. 6.
[38]
Environmental Research Management for The World Bank/ UNDP, National
Environmental Action Plan for the Arab Republic of Syria, June 1998,
pp. 12, 14.
[39] The World Bank, 2001: p. xi.
[40] Ibid, Table A.11, p. 58.
[41] Ministry of Irrigation, Strategy of Work at the Irrigation Ministry, Tables 17 and 18.
[42]
Andrew Martin, "Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water," The
International Herald Tribune, August 21, 2008,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/21/business/21arabfood.php.
[43] "Bigger But Not Better," al-Ahram Weekly, No. 901, June 12-18, 2008, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/901/eg1.htm.
[44]
Daniel Kendie, "Egypt and the Hydro-Politics of the Blue Nile River,"
Northeast African Studies Vol. 6, No. 1-2 (1999), pp. 141-69,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/northeast_african_studies/v006/6.1kendie.html#REF9.

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