Zuayter raises questions about agricultural integration in the Arab National Conference
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APN l Beirut

23 June 2022

 

APN's Chairperson of the board, Razan Zuayter, participated in the 31st session of the Arab National Conference, held in Beirut.

During its sessions, the conference discussed several issues, including the conference’s achievements as well as the issue of "normalization with the Zionist entity" and papers related to the Arab renaissance project.

Zuayter gave a presentation in which she expressed pride in the new membership in the conference, which made it worthy of support, despite the challenges, and most importantly its self-financing. She alluded to her attendance of the ESCWA meeting which focused on the means for mobilizing youth for combating desertification and drought, while commenting that the Arab political desertification is more important, whose resolution could lead to the redemption of the disaster of environmental desertification.  

APN's Chairperson of the board directed a question to the conferees about how to transform important analysis and recommendations into working mechanisms, and ways and means for moving in the direction of unifying the strategies of the stakeholders and the Arab League, and how to reform them and be among their partners in the higher echelons of the organizations.

She observed that we in the Arab World do not possessing independent decision making, where one of the principal reasons for this is that we are the biggest importer of food in the world even though we have the capability to secure our food by planting our lands. We in fact only plant 30% of our arable land, not to mention that we substantially waste water. In this context I say that it is not a coincidence, for Kissinger said that if you want to control countries control oil, and if you want to control nations you must control food.

Zuayter recommended that the conference plays an important role in pushing Arab countries towards agricultural and economic integration, which enhances regional sovereignty, and that it plays an active role in reconciliation efforts and stopping inter-wars and conflicts without which there cannot be real sustainable development.