Download Proposed regional programme on Climate Change, Food Security

By Rashid S. Kaukab
Regional Meeting
Climate Change and Food Security
27 June ,2011
Dhaka, Bangladesh
 Introduction to SAARC
 SAARC: Climate Change-Food Security-Trade Linkages
• Trade-Food Security link
• Trade-Climate Change Link
• Climate Change-Food Security Link
• Climate Change-Food Security-Trade Link
 Capacity Building Needs
 Proposed Regional Programme
2
Economic Overview
 Agriculture holds a central place in all South Asian economies, except for Maldives
 Moreover, this sector employs more than half of the labour force in SAARC countries,
reaching 97% in Bhutan
Countries
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
India
Maldives
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
Total
Contribution of
Ag. to GDP (%)
40
19.1
21.9
19.0
6
32.9
20.4
13.2
-
Ag. labour force as
% of total labour
force
59.8
45.21
96.71
55.75
15.33
87.73
41.33
47.27
53.7
Poverty headcount
ratio at $2 a day
(PPP) (%)
na
81.33
49.49
75.59
na
77.57
60.31
39.74
73.40
% of
undernourished
population
na
27
Na
21
na
16
26
19
-
3
SAARC Food Imports and Exports
 There is a growing dependence on cereal imports, particularly for India
 The same trend can be obvserved for Live Animals and Meat, and Marine Products
Live animals, Meat and
Meat Products
Marine Products
Exports
2005
Imports
2009
2005
exports
2009
Afghanistan
2005
-
Cereals
imports
2009
2005
-
-
Exports
2009
-
2005
-
Imports
2009
2005
-
-
2009
-
Bangladesh 407'948
482'869
2'497 18'977 22
116
6'728 7'659 10'526
4’750
402'324 762'836
Bhutan
-
-
1'322 2'396
1
5'694 7'706 51
183
11'871
India
1466 662 1'412'386 19'960 38'625 586'196 1'196'615 2'349 10'434 1'915'272
Maldives
84'115
67'217
3'001 7'677
0
0
8'829 18'518 0
Nepal
-
3
-
531
1'885
4'771 6'808
Pakistan
146'657
192'909
1'678 972
Sri Lanka
103 442
179'206
47'401 89'969 355
Total
2'208'824 2'334'590 75'859 '161093 609'322 1'294'692 37'955 64'710 3'030'616 17'155
2'477
0
22'218 95'061
1'014
5'369 11'004 1'100'585
4'215 2'581 4'182
2’986’63 2'729
0
0
6772
17'155
17'037
12'952
14'116
28'432
1’823’21 161370 330'869
7
5’041
198047 305'696
416'924 1'471'938
4
Intra-SAARC Food Trade
 Despite two decades of efforts at regional economic integration, South Asia
is one of the least-integrated regions in the world
 Intra-SAARC trade in Food is very marginal
Food Exports in 2009
Share in Total
Exports (%)
Exports to
SAARC (%)
Food Imports in 2009
Share in Total
Imports (%)
Imports from
SAARC (%)
Afghanistan
55.51
-
7.7
-
Bangladesh
3.38
-
17.85
-
Bhutan
5.97
0.17
14.16
97.39
India
6.12
5.56
3.72
2.1
Maldives
96.51
0.08
20.09
37.25
Nepal
22.57
0.98
11.44
34.8
Pakistan
16.46
0.71
9.42
6.36
Sri Lanka
23.94
0.52
14.23
19.57
Total
7.41
8.02
5.5
5.24
5
Relevant Policies
 Agreement on the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) (2006). While this is a
good step, all member countries maintain a sensitive list of products with no tariff
concessions.
 SAARC Regional Strategy and Regional Programme for Food Security (2008)
 Action Plan on Climate Change (2009-2011). Prioritized regional issues related to
food security such as over exploitation and degradation of natural resources.
SAARC is transitioning from a declaratory to implementation phase, envisaging
itself to play more enabling roles in addressing climate change.
 The Thimpu Statement on Climate Change (2010) proposes an action-oriented
programme
6
Climate Change-Food Security Link
The expected impacts of Climate change on food security include:
NEGATIVE
 Impact on coastal economic activities: Increased land salinity and land loss in
coastal areas, displacing several million people and severely impacting coastal
economic activities including fisheries
 Impact on cereal productivity: 15 to 30% decline of cereal productivity on
average across the region by the middle of the century and a rise of food
prices by 94 to 111% for wheat, and by 32 to 37% for rice.
 Water stress: 2 to 4% rise in temperature will expose up to 924 million
people to water stress
7
Trade-Food Security Link
 Because of agricultural production shortages, these countries are heavily
dependent on food imports, which are not sourced in South Asia because
of a number of trade barriers and supply-side constraints.
POSITIVE
 Trade offers the possibility to stabilize domestic prices, to balance food
deficiency and to harness comparative advantage
 Trade can enhance food security by increasing livelihood opportunities directly
through improved profitability and spin-off and multiplier effects.
NEGATIVE
 However, it also exposes a country to prices volatility on international markets
which can threaten food security. Moreover, the current WTO agreements
allow distortive practices (e.g. subsidies, export restrictions)
8
Trade-Climate Change Link
Climate change may significantly alter trade flows.
 Climate change could exert significant impacts on trade flows, given its expected

impacts on agricultural yield.
Climate change can alter existing patterns of comparative advantage in trade, e.g a
sudden increase in price will shift production patterns as farmers are driven by
higher returns.
Trade can affect the environment in both positive and negative manners.
 Trade liberalization and foreign direct investment may bring in new techniques of

production that are more energy efficient.
However, trade itself will lead to more GHGs given increased transportation and
greater distances.
9
Climate Change-Food Security-Trade Linkages
A positive food security-trade linkage to face climate change challenge can be
established through:
 clearly aligning trade, environment, and agricultural policies;
 understanding the particular food security needs and the impact of climate change
on food security in a country;
 targeting trade policy and its instruments to ensure steady imports in the case of
structurally food-deficient countries;
 improving export performance to garner resources to pay for needed food imports;
and
 adjustment of production and trade patterns according to climate change adaptation
and mitigation plans.
10
An Endowment-Entitlement Framework for Climate Change-Food Security-Trade Linkages
Endowment-Entitlement Equation: A small piece of land, good rainfall, and access to inputs may comprise the
endowment set of a small rice farmer in Bangladesh. She uses these endowments to get her entitlements for
livelihoods. This is her endowment-entitlement equation.
Impact of Climate Change: Climate change will introduce shocks like variations in rainfall, temperature,
flooding etc. into the equation and change it. For example, either less or much rainfall may render her plot of land
incapable for rice production and thus reduce the set of her endowments. Even if she continues to have that plot
of land and access to rice market, she may not be in a position to transfer that ‘endowment’ to her ‘entitlement’
due to inability to produce rice.
Impact of Trade: The linkage between endowment and entitlement will also depend on other factors and
here trade can play an important role. For example, trade can offer another set of endowment (e.g., increased
opportunities in manufacturing through Duty-Free-Quota-Free market access for Bangladeshi manufactured
exports) to compensate for the loss of earlier set of endowment of the farmer or use her given set of endowment
to convert into entitlements through a different utilization, e.g., producing crops that are suited to the changed
climatic conditions with a market in the region.
Application of Framework: Application of this framework in a regional programme will allow for robust and
evidence-based research, focussed and targeted advocacy, and contribution to appropriate and integrated policies
and action plans related to climate change, food security, and trade that target these linkages to improve
endowment-entitlement equations.
11
Capacity needs and recommendations for the way forward
Capacity needs of SAARC stakeholders can be categorized into the following
broad categories:
 Research to fill the existing gaps in the knowledge and understanding of
climate change-food security-trade linkages
 Knowledge and expertise development to establish and implement
holistic trade, food security, and climate change mitigation and adaptation
policies and responses
 Awareness-raising and advocacy to widely and effectively disseminate
the relevant information about the imminent challenges, climate change-food
security-trade linkages, and the need for adequate responses.
 A forum that brings together the sets of actors dealing with climate change
adaptation, export promotion and agricultural production to share
perspectives and identify integrated responses.
12
Main Objective
To build the capacity of stakeholders in the SAARC region to better
understand the climate change-food security-trade linkages and design and implement
mitigation and adaptation responses that use trade to improve food security in the face
of climate change challenges. The focus will be on shielding the poor and marginalized
from the worst effects of climate change on food security.
Specific Objectives
 Increasing knowledge on climate change-food security-trade linkages in the
region
 Increasing capacity of the stakeholders to take advantage of the positive linkages
and develop adequate policies and strategies to deal with the negative linkages
 Increasing interaction among relevant stakeholders from the region on these
issues to facilitate integrated and coordinated responses
13
Methodology
 Collaborative and evidence-based research involving partners in Norway as
well as in project countries to improve the understanding of climate changefood security-trade linkages
 Building regional, multi-stakeholder networks to pool knowledge and
expertise and to develop integrated policy and programme responses
 Maximizing synergies by establishing partnerships with other relevant
organizations, particularly FAO, UNEP, and WMO
 Emphasizing the regional dimension including of the problems and their
solutions
 Empowering the poor and marginalized through awareness-raising and
advocacy activities
14
Activities and Outputs
Organically linked Research-Advocacy-Networking (RAN) activities for:
 Identification of climate change-food security-trade issues affecting the region
 Building knowledge base on identified issues through research and pooling of
experiences
 Utilizing knowledge for policy and programme development and appropriate
legislation
 Feeding of information and lessons into other important processes in the region
 Utilizing the information and lessons to inform negotiating positions of SAARC
countries in the WTO and other relevant international fore, e.g. climate change
negotiations
 Providing information and lessons to policy makers and local communities as well as
international agencies like FAO, UNEP, WMO
15
Expected Outcomes
 Expanded body of knowledge on issues related to climate change, food
security and trade
 Improved understanding among stakeholders in the region of the climate
change-food security-trade linkages
 Greater involvement of relevant stakeholders in related policy making and
implementation
16
Activity
Research
Outputs

Publications
Relevant Project Outcomes


Expanded body of
knowledge
Improved understanding
of stakeholders



Networking




Project inception
meeting
Annual Regional
Meetings
Regional E-networks
Country National
Reference Groups


Greater involvement of
relevant stakeholders
Improved understanding
of stakeholders



Relevant Project
Objectives
Increased knowledge on
climate change-food
security-trade linkages
Increased capacity of
stakeholders
Development and
implementation of
relevant policies by the
countries
Increased capacity of
stakeholders
Increased interaction
among relevant
stakeholders from the
region
Better means for the
implementation of
relevant policies by the
national governments17
Activity
Advocacy
and
awarenessraising
Outputs




Advocacy
documents
Web site
Media releases
Annual Regional
Meetings


Relevant Project
Outcomes
Improved

understanding of
stakeholders
Greater involvement of
relevant stakeholders 

Relevant Project
Objectives
Increased knowledge
on climate changefood security-trade
linkages
Increased capacity of
stakeholders
Conducive
environment for the
implementation of
relevant policies by
the national
governments
18
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