Razan Zuayter, president of the Arabic Network for Food Sovereignty and co-founder of the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, was invited as a main speaker and a coordinator of the civil society session at the Arab Forum for Environment and Development meetings held on the 2-3 November 2017 in Beirut with the aim of discussing the changes in the environment in the Arab world over the past decade.

While the Saudi delegate Ahmad Mohammad Al Ansari, Vice President of the General Committee for Meteorology and Environmental Protection in Saudi Arabia, gave a presentation on building the new modern Saudi city “Neom”, Zuayter intervened calling for an immediate end to the war on Yemen, drawing attention to the fact that environmental protection cannot occur through raging wars, and that protecting ancient cities in Yemen should take precedence over building a modern city.During her speech on Arab civil society, Zuayter called on adopting the term civil society, rather than NGO, such that the former is broader and includes social movements.

Zuayter spoke about the challenges faced by Arab civil society, including the absence of political will to achieve food sovereignty, which also requires Arab complete integration, and the absence of the will to end wars. Zuayter expressed that politics and the environment are inextricably linked.To watch Zuayter’s speech, see: