Doha, Qatar: Food and water security will take the centre stage in the 3rd National Development Strategy of Qatar where the focus will be on boosting local food production, improving supply chains and investing in research, development and innovation, said a top official.
“Today, we are about to launch the third National Development Strategy, which is the final strategy to achieve the Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030,” said Assistant to President of the Planning and Statistics Authority (PSA), Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al Nuaimi.
He said achieving water and food security takes a prominent place, as investments will be directed not only to infrastructure projects, but also to projects that support the integration of local production and supply chains, in addition to investing in research, development and innovation.
Al Nuaimi was speaking at the opening session of a workshop on “Food and Water Security for the GCC and its Role in Achieving Sustainable Development”, organised by PSA in coordination with GCC Secretariat General in Doha yesterday. “QNV 2030 aims to transform Qatar into an advanced country capable of achieving sustainable development and ensuring the continuation of decent living for its people, generation after generation,” said Al Nuaimi.
He said this requires the sustainability of production systems and supply chains and raising their operational efficiency, as well as raising the efficiency in use of natural resources.
“Although successive national development strategies since 2011 have addressed food security issues, and even before them water security issues, they have gained greater momentum in recent years as the goals have become more ambitious.”
Al Nuaimi said efforts were not limited to awareness programmes urging for conservation of water and curbing food waste but concrete measures were taken to stop excessive use of groundwater, in addition to raising the efficiency of the performance of water networks and establishing wastewater treatment plants.
“GCC countries are classified as food secure according to the second goal of the global sustainable development goals (which concerns providing food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture), considering that the percentage of people suffering from shortage of foods or malnutrition is very modest,” said Al Nuaimi. He said local agricultural, livestock and fish production is on the rise and the country is close to achieving the goal of doubling local production by 2030.
However, he said scarcity of natural resources in general has led the GCC countries to rely on imports of agricultural materials and food commodities, which meet 80%-90% of these countries' needs. “The GCC countries now secure an advanced position in the field of water desalination in the world, after their production capacity exceeded 97 million cubic metres per day, which is about 40% of the total global desalinated water,” said Al Nuaimi.
Speaking at the same event, a representative of GCC Secretariat General, Saad bin Abdullah Al Mutlaq said the most important goals of sustainable development are achieving food and water security for the GCC countries. “The Gulf countries have the ability to provide food imports despite the limited agricultural land due to climate and desertification. They enjoy food security but not self-sufficiency, and depend heavily on food imports,” said Al Mutlaq.
At its 33rd meeting, he said the Agricultural Cooperation and Food Security Committee of GCC discussed the issue of food security.
He said the team is preparing an implementation plan for the recommendations of the first meeting of the Gulf Working Group for Food Security in Riyadh on June 15, 2022.
“This plan should be compatible with national food security strategies and determine implementation priorities,” said Al Mutlaq.
