DETERMINANTS AND PERFORMANCES OF FOOD SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA REGION COUNTRIES

The current food security situation in the MENA region is surrounded by uncertainty and bleak due to several domestic and global challenges, such as a rapid increase in population growth rate, a global slowdown in economic growth rate, climate change impacts, a reduction in water resources, the spreading of political instability, the prevalence of malnutrition, low food production, high food import dependency, weak drinking water and sanitation services. This paper aims to shed light on the food security situation in the MENA region by investigating the determinants of food security and then measuring the food security performance of each MENA country. The study contributes to tackling the current food security situation in the MENA region by focusing on investigating the food security determinants and weights by using multiple regression analysis to understand the role of macroeconomic factors in improving food security performance in the MENA countries. The findings confirm that in terms of food availability and access, the MENA countries have decent stability on those dimensions, while food utilization and stability dimensions in MENA countries have poor performance.