Seated around the dining table, the family of four stares blankly at pictures of food sketched on the tablecloth. \u201cTonight,\u201d the father says, \u201cwe\u2019re coloring for dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scene in a cartoon in a Moroccan newspaper speaks to the predicament facing the kingdom\u2019s 37 million people and their peers across North Africa as the Muslim world marks Ramadan. Normally characterized by abstention broken by plentiful sunset feasts, the holy month for many this year is a confrontation with painful economic reality.<\/p>\n
Global food costs are up more than 50% from mid-2020 and households worldwide are trying to cope with the strains on their budgets. In North Africa, the challenge is more acute because of a legacy of economic mismanagement, drought and social unrest that\u2019s forcing governments to walk a political tightrope at a precarious time.<\/p>\n
The Middle East and North Africa region\u2019s net food and energy importers are especially vulnerable to shocks to commodity markets and supply chains resulting from Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine, according to the International Monetary Fund. That\u2019s in countries where the rising cost of living helped trigger the Arab Spring uprisings a little over a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust how much more do we have to take?\u201d asked Ahmed Moustafa, a 35-year-old driver and father of three in Cairo. He already had to sell some appliances to keep food on the table and cover other expenses, he said. \u201cWe keep being asked to cut and cut and cut, but there\u2019s not much left to cut from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Home to large, mainly urban populations and lacking oil wealth, governments in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia are struggling to maintain subsidies for food and fuel that have helped keep a lid on discontent.<\/p>\n
The World Food Programme has warned that people\u2019s resilience is at \u201cbreaking point,\u201d while the United Arab Emirates moved to help ally Egypt, the world\u2019s largest buyer of wheat, to shore up its food security and ward off potential instability. Egypt is also seeking IMF help.<\/p>\n
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has tried to push ahead with reforms to revive the economy since coming to power in 2014 without fueling popular frustration. He sought last month to unite the nation behind inevitable sacrifices.<\/p>\n
That includes shunning old habits of over-consuming \u2014 especially during Ramadan, which started on April 2. \u201cPeople think that my dining table looks different,\u201d El-Sisi said at March 23 event, urging the country of over 100 million to scale back during the Iftar meal that breaks the day-long Ramadan fast. But, \u201cI am responsible before God,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Just weeks ago, Egyptian officials were quick to take pride in the fact that the economy of the Arab world\u2019s most populous nation had weathered the pandemic and posted solid growth. Inflation, too, was under control.<\/p>\n
That changed after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Investors pulled billions of dollars from the country\u2019s debt market and the currency sank 15%. Egypt banned exports of key foodstuffs including flour, lentils and wheat.<\/p>\n
By early March, the war had pushed up wheat-flour prices by 19% and vegetable oils by 10%, the government said. That\u2019s in a country where the average family income is about 5,000 pounds ($272) a month \u2014 roughly 31% of which is spent on sustenance, according to the state-run statistics agency.<\/p>\n
Hilal El-Dandarawy, a retired state employee in the southern city of Aswan, said he\u2019s now bracing for a surge in fuel prices and a tsunami of other increases. \u201cWe are living in a price crisis in goods and services, electricity, water and gas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A worse situation is playing out in Tunisia, the nation that gave birth to the Arab Spring revolts and which has been mired in political turmoil ever since. The pounding the economy took as a result of that infighting among officials is now amplified thanks to COVID-19 and Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The central bank has warned that strong measures must be taken to reform the economy, but such efforts have been repeatedly blocked by the powerful UGTT labor union. Tunisia, too, is turning to the IMF amid warnings about the risk of default on its debt.<\/p>\n
The dilemma for Ahmed Masoud, a 40-year-old merchant in the old city in the capital Tunis, brings those broader issues into sharper focus. He complained that the dearth of tourists, which had begun due to the pandemic, is now exacerbated by the Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n
Government assistance to offset the drop in business has barely made a dent and he can barely cover utility bills. \u201cI think I\u2019ll close my shop and look for another job,\u201d Masoud said, with a resigned shrug.<\/p>\n
Back in neighboring Morocco, things aren\u2019t any better. While it managed to avoid the political upheavals of the Arab Spring in 2011, it hasn\u2019t been spared on the economic front. Growth is expected to grind down to 0.7% this year, around a tenth its level in 2021. The central bank predicts inflation, meanwhile, will hit 4.7%, relatively modest compared with even parts of Europe, though still the highest since the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n
Managing the \u201cexogenous shock\u201d of the war may force Morocco to seek a precautionary liquidity line from the IMF, Governor Abdellatif Jouahri said. Morocco is facing \u201can unprecedented situation,\u201d he added. The war in Ukraine is threatening to stoke public anger over prices and send the state\u2019s financing needs to historic highs.<\/p>\n
Grains merchant Mohamed Bellamine, whose shop in Rabat\u2019s Rahba market would normally be heaving with shoppers in the days before Ramadan, sees the impact clearly. He gestures to the empty street with a sigh: \u201cUsually you wouldn\u2019t even be able to find a place to park.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seated around the dining table, the family of four stares blankly at pictures of food sketched on the tablecloth. \u201cTonight,\u201d the father says, \u201cwe\u2019re coloring for dinner.\u201d The scene in a cartoon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,23],"tags":[46,48,57,68,76,77,81,82,86,87,90,96,99,103,107,109,111,112,113,121,122,134,137,139,146,148,160,174,176,183,184,201,202,209,222,230,232,233,239,244,246,249,250,252,256,262,263,267,277,279,280,283,285,288],"class_list":["post-6033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-carbon","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-closure-of-nuclear-power-plants","tag-co2","tag-cyprus","tag-decarbonising","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-eastmed","tag-egypt","tag-embargo","tag-emissions","tag-energy","tag-energy-market","tag-energy-peace","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-fuels-russian-gas-oil-and-gas-natural-gas","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-greece","tag-greenenergy","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-liquefied-natural-gas","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-pollution","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-renewable-energy","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-russia-in-the-european-energy-sector","tag-russian-sanctions","tag-saudi","tag-solar","tag-solar-power","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-turkey","tag-ukrain","tag-unclos","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}