Arab Environment Watch: World Bank: MENA Countries are off track in environmental sustainability

The World Bank has published its annual global monitoring report which aims to shed light on the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. This year's report had a focus on MDG 7 about environmental sustainability.

Regarding the MENA region the World bank report states that the Middle East & North Africa region is off track on an important environment-related target – to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to an improved source of water and basic sanitation facilities by 2015. The region has also increased its carbon dioxide emissions, faces diminishing critical per capita water resources, and is at risk on several fronts from climate variability. Environmental sustainability is a major issue in the region, which is, on average, not offsetting its extraction of exceptionally rich natural resources with sufficient investments to ensure long-term economic growth.

The report further states that Studies show that in some countries health costs from environmental risks that range from 1.2 to 3.8 percent of GDP. In these countries, limited water and sanitation access and air pollution pose the main environment-related health risks.

Other indicators and observations include:

The share of the region’s population without access to safe water has declined by just one percentage point since 1990, and now stands at 11 percent, off track on meeting the goal of 6 percent by 2015. Compared with 30 percent in 1990, 24 percent of the region’s population still lacks access to improved sanitation, off track on meting the goal of 15 percent by 2015

Only 28.6 percent of children suffering from diarrhea in the region receive oral rehydration therapy (ORT).

In rural areas in the Middle East, over 38 percent of the rural population lacks access to electricity and may be dependent on biomass fuels, which affect health through indoor air pollution. Only 9 percent of the rural population in North Africa lacks access to electricity

Climate change could trigger agricultural losses in parts of the region, owing to increasing frequency and length of droughts, and could increase deaths due to diarrhea, malaria and malnutrition.

The region is vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise as a result of global warming. With a sea level rise of one meter and unless effective adaptation measures are in place, coastal communities face major risk.

Weather-index insurance, currently being piloted in Tunisia and Morocco, offers opportunities to assist poor farmers.

The region’s share of natural resources is particularly high at $12,000 per capita, mostly in the form of oil. However, a number of countries in the region remain on an unsustainable path, consuming profits on natural resource exploitation rather than investing these profits to ensure long-term economic sustainability.

The region is experiencing water stress, with internal freshwater resources already below 2,000 cubic meters per capita, and expected to fall to less than 500 cubic meters per capita by 2050.

Freshwater withdrawals are above the level of resources available. Underground abstraction is in many cases beyond the recharge level, particularly in countries, which rely heavily on underground water.