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As a region, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is the world's largest grain importer. Approximately 30 per cent of global exports of wheat and barley, 20 per cent of corn, and a whopping three-quarters of sunflower oil come from Ukraine and Russia. The aggression against Ukraine is thus disrupting global food trade and affecting food security in the MENA. The war is also raising questions about future food systems and their water footprint. In the Arab world, dependence on Ukraine and Russia for imports of wheat, the world's largest source of calories, is at 50 per cent - among the highest globally. The greatest vulnerability exists in Egypt, Lebanon, and Sudan. Imports will actually need to rise from pre-war levels if population growth and dietary changes towards meat and dairy products are taken into consideration. For lack of water, food self-sufficiency is not an option in the MENA. Food imports constitute "virtual water" - that is, the water used to produce a commodity and thus embedded in it. Virtual water can be imported by MENA countries via the food trade and has mitigated water scarcity by adding a "second Nile River" to the region's water balance. The global food crisis of 2007/2008 spurred MENA countries to attempt to alleviate their import vulnerabilities bilaterally, via investments in land and in value chains, but reliance on the multilateral international trading system remains. The reaction to the current crisis can build on lessons learnt since then, with coping capacities unevenly distributed between the region's richer oil exporters and poorer countries. Avoiding new export restrictions such as those that occurred during the global food crisis of 2007/2008 is crucial. Western attempts to stabilise the multilateral food trade could help the MENA to source alternative supplies. This might also offer an opportunity to mend fences between the West and MENA at a time when closer energy cooperation is essential and an ambivalent stance in the MENA towards Russia has caused irritation in the West.

Past approaches to food security in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were informed by concerns about food availability. They aimed at domestic self-sufficiency and self-sufficiency by proxy (via farmland investments abroad). These strategies have failed. Water scarcity at home increasingly compromises agricultural production. Farmland investments abroad have not matched ambitious related announcements due to a complex mixture of commercial, socio-economic and political factors. They do not contribute meaningful quantities to the Gulf countries’ food imports. The failure of such strategies has prompted a shift of focus instead towards value chain management as a means to secure food availability. Rather than trying to fight food import dependence, the Gulf countries now accept and manage it. However, malnutrition that leads to high levels of obesity and diabetes constitutes a risk factor in the face of COVID-19. Food accessibility for vulnerable population segments such as migrant labour is another issue that requires yet further policy measures, such as safety nets – whose expansion would be politically controversial if not impossible, however.

There have been three different kinds of reactions to the coronavirus crisis: those from early movers, with extensive measures taken (Israel, Jordan, Gulf countries, Morocco); those from states that initially struggled to acknowledge the magnitude of the crisis out of concern about its economic impact (Iran, Turkey, Egypt); and, those from countries whose ability to react to the crisis is in doubt because of civil war and internal disarray (Yemen, Libya, Syria). The capacities of regional health systems are lagging in comparison to international peers. The median age of the population is relatively low. However the number of vulnerable elderly is still substantial, as the region has been undergoing a demographic transition for several decades now. Other at-risk groups are the poor, labour migrants, the prison population, refugees, and internally displaced persons. The economic impact of COVID-19 will affect domestic spending and threatens to undermine the social contract and political stability. The pandemic also has the potential to shake up geopolitical dynamics, as it will reduce the ability of key actors to intervene regionally (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia). The coronavirus crisis requires government intervention on a large scale. Such intervention will be used to further the political goals of authoritarian regimes, too. It will be integrated into their repression strategies - including cyber surveillance - and will likely outlast the health crisis itself. The pandemic is thus reinforcing trends towards populism and authoritarian restoration in the Middle East and North Africa. The European Union is currently preoccupied with its own coronavirus crisis, and struggling to find coordinated approaches to the tackling of it. Yet it should not overlook the unfolding socio-economic crisis in its southern neighbourhood. If Europe wants to be a serious geopolitical actor, it needs to find the wherewithal to provide assistance - and advertise that fact - to match similar efforts undertaken by China as part of its "mask diplomacy" in the region.