Zawaya

Politics disable everything

By: Mohamed Mohamedou Khattat

“If nature is threatened, so are we”. This is probably what the five member countries of the Arab Maghreb Union (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia) were thinking before expressing their willingness to adopt a common position on environmental issues prior to Copenhagen’s 15th conference that will take place next December. That is because Maghreb countries are among the most exposed to the dramatic consequences of climate change, not only for what it entails in terms of humanitarian crises, immigration, violations of human rights… but also, and especially, because climate change is exerting significant impacts on ecosystems and local climate, resulting in an increasing desertification, land degradation, and loss of biodiversity. Hence, the interest of the AMU to be well prepared for the key event in Copenhagen.

The third meeting of the AMU’s Standing Committee on Desertification, Environment and Sustainable Development, held in Tripoli on 25 February this year, enabled the participants to learn about the forest cover development projects, reforestation campaigns, the fight against advancing sand dunes and desertification, and the fight against erosion, etc., in the Maghreb. The AMU countries then expressed their willingness to implement a preventive policy that is based on awareness about climate change risks, and the execution of adaptation plans aiming to minimize the negative impacts of climate change on the ecosystems of the region.

The environmental concern of the AMU’s countries is quite justified by the fact that climate disruption can have devastating and irreversible consequences that can lead them to confront the challenges of food insecurity, and scarcity of fishery resources and water. This concern should be associated with the planned economic integration in the framework of a free trade zone for a common market of 90 million potential consumers. A market where economies are complementary, since the region contains about 3% of world oil reserves, 4% of natural gas reserves, and 50% of proven reserves of phosphate. It’s also a market where “the increase of trade would provide two additional growth points to each one of the AMU countries, and reduce unemployment”, which affects particularly Maghreb youth tempted by immigration.

However, the problem is that Maghreb economic integration is taking long to be materialized, despite requests from international AMU partners, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whose director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, had urged Maghreb countries last November to apply with each other the same kind of relations they have with the European Union, where they generally carry about 80% of their trade, compared to less than 3% of trade conducted in the Maghreb region.

According to the Secretariat General of the AMU, the delay in the integration process of the Maghreb costs each country in the region 2% of their annual growth rate.

Truth be told, climate, economic and social issues, as well as the sustainable strategy in the AMU, are intimately related to political divisions that undermine the union from the inside, especially with the Western Sahara issue and the closed borders between countries, etc.