Dr Amna Al Dahak, the UAE’s Minister of Climate Change and Environment, recently spoke to The National about how the country was strengthening its home-grown food production. The Emirates, she said, is “not waiting for a crisis to happen to design our strategy”.
This attitude is informing the country’s wider approach to readiness. On Wednesday, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, approved the launch of a strategy aimed at protecting essential supplies not only of food but medicine and industrial products amid a series of challenges, not least of which is the continuing fallout from the Iran war.
As part of this initiative, the government plans to work on diversifying import sources as well as promoting local manufacturing and agriculture. Far from a being a form of state intervention, the National Programme to Strengthen Supply Chain Resilience will be carried out in partnership with the private sector to ensure the availability of staple goods.
The UAE is not alone in facing a moment of acute uncertainty - it is a global phenomenon. Vital shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz remain closed, and the risk of renewed war lingers – both of which have serious repercussions for the world economy. As a result of the Hormuz disruption, the World Bank expects fertiliser prices to jump by almost a third this year, something that will threaten future crop yields and drive consumer costs. Many countries, even those far from the Middle East, can expect rising prices in the coming months.
But the UAE has experienced uncertainty before and taken measures to mitigate it. When the Covid-19 pandemic stalled economies the world over, upending once-dependable logistics routes and trade relationships, the Emirates took action to source daily goods from alternative markets. The country also embarked on a strategy of import substitution; Make it in the Emirates and Operation 300bn – both launched in 2021 – made it clear that the Emirates would take steps to make its economy shock-proof by manufacturing more goods at home. This was supported by a decision announced late last month to set up a Dh1 billion ($272 million) fund to support the industrial sector.
Well-established water conservation and food security strategies – both born from the lived experience of an arid country’s geographic reality – are part of the UAE’s particularly proactive approach to resilience. The country’s National Food Security Strategy 2051 and Water Security Strategy 2036 both have interim and final goals that are measured not in months but in decades.
Preparedness of the kind seen in the supply-chain strategy unveiled this week is as much cultural and social as it is economic. Understanding that there will always be the risk of disruption in an uncertain global context is good impetus for taking action before a crisis appears.
