1. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity & The Regional Collaborative Platform Michela Marinelli Geospatial analyst FAO Rome, Italy Global Food Security-Support Analysis Data @ 30 m, Menlo Park, CA 94025 19-21 January 2016 19-21 January 2016

2. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity 2 The NENA region

3. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity Water-poor region (average annual precipitation 150 mm) Countries have constructed an important water storage per capita 4 countries (Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Syria) have access to water resources coming from outside the countries; Iran has significant internal water resources Water resources are already over allocated and demand is going to rise in the future All NENA countries want to collaborate to develop an integrated water resource management and improve inter- sectoral allocation efficiency through specific basins planning The NENA region – water resources

4. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity Agriculture is the biggest user of water in the region Irrigated agriculture is highly developed Groundwater represented a significant source of water for agriculture that now is experiencing a strong depletion in most of the countries of the region All NENA countries have recognized that water scarcity will increase and so the water used for agriculture MUST be managed more efficiently and sustainably The NENA region – agriculture

5. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity The WSI background Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in Near East and North Africa WSI The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in Near East and North Africa (WSI) was launched by FAO in 2013 to support countries in identifying, developing and implementing:  evidence-based policy-decisions  sound governance and institutions  cost-effective water investments  best management practices to address food security under water scarcity while increasing sustainable agricultural water management

6. The first move of the WSI was to engage in a vast dialogue engage in a vast dialogue through the Region to identify ‘gaps’ and finding critical ‘solutions’ The result of this dialogue was The Regional Collaborative Strategy

7. The Partnership ACSAD ACSAD - Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands AOAD AOAD - Arab Organization for Agricultural Development AWC AWC - Arab Water Council CEDARE CEDARE - Center for Environ. and Develop. for the Arab Region and Europe CIHEAM CIHEAM - International Center for Advanced Mediterranean Agric. Studies DRC DRC - Desert Research Center DWFI DWFI - Daugherty Water for Food Institute GIZ - GIZ - German Cooperation Agency ICARDA ICARDA - International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Area ICBA ICBA - International Center for Biosaline Agriculture IWMI IWMI - International Water Management Institute LAS LAS - League of Arab States NWRC-Egypt NWRC-Egypt - National Water Research Center UNESCO UNESCO - UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCWA UNESCWA - UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia WB WB - World Bank WFP WFP - World Food Program

8. Regional Collaborative Platform The Regional Collaborative Platform represents the mechanism to implement the strategy Regional Collaborative Platform Non web-based outreach Web-based Knowledge Platform The Regional Collaborative Platform

9. What’s new in this platform? Focus (water accounting, crop water productivity, drought) Having a strong Remote Sensing component Cutting edge data storage and analysis Strong stakeholders engagement Significant magnitude of spatial and temporal scales capacity Looking at country capacity enhancement

10. Pathway to results State-of-the-art RS Products and Service provided by key utility basket Partners (utility basket) Country present capacity actual status (actual status) Country enhanced capacity upgraded status (upgraded status) Regional Collaborative Platform

11. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity Why GFSAD30 is interesting for the RCP? It provides high resolution cropland products through multi-sensor remote sensing data (e.g., Landsat, MODIS, AVHRR), secondary data, and field-plot data by developing semi-automated algorithms It provides crop type maps at 30m resolution on seasonal basis It contributes to enhance the capacity development of the country which has to validate the products and be able to reprocess it by itself It appears as a sustainable solution for the countries in the long term

12. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity What we have done so far… FAO-RNE has finalized the MoU with USAID and ICARDA FAO, ICRISAT and ICARDA prepared a concept note for USAID to provide the NENA region with a cropland map at 250m for the periods 2015-2016 and 2016-2017, land use changes for the last 10 years and crop type maps for one pilot country (Tunisia) GFSAD30 has been presented to several regional stakeholders at the Water Scarcity Initiative workshop held in Cairo (27-29 Oct. 2015)

13. The Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity Next steps… Finalization of the MoU between FAO-RNE and USGS Finalization of the MoU between FAO-RNE and ICRISAT By next summer, provision of a country report, assessing the status and needs to operationalize the Regional Collaborative Platform in the focus countries of the WSI (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine)

14. http://www.fao.org/neareast/en/ Thank you pasquale.steduto@fao.org michela.marinelli@fao.org