Reforming Social Safety Nets

Regardless of whether the Arab world’s food security strategy focuses on a trade-based approach or puts greater emphasis on domestic production, as shown in Figure 1.2 in Chapter 1, there will remain a need for effective social safety nets to ensure that the poor and vulnerable are able to access and afford food. In the absence of effective social safety nets, households under pressure from rising food prices (or declining food supplies) adopt a range of coping mechanisms, many of which can propel them into a poverty trap. For example, they often initially react by eating less food or cheaper, less nutritious food. They may then be driven to borrow money, sell assets such as seeds and livestock, remove children from school (especially girls), or spend less on health care. This can create a vicious cycle. In the words of ESCWA (2010, p. 15), ‘Just as poverty makes people food insecure, so food insecurity increases the risk of aggravating or falling into poverty’. World Bank (2006b) elaborates on the poverty/malnutrition cycle (ESCWA 2010, figure 8).