Papers by Perrihan Al-riffai
This paper provides a model-based assessment of local and global climate change impacts for the c... more This paper provides a model-based assessment of local and global climate change impacts for the case of Yemen, focusing on agricultural production, household incomes and food security. Global climate change is mainly transmitted through rising world food prices. Our simulation results suggest that climate change induced price increases for food will raise agricultural GDP while decreasing real household incomes and food security. Rural nonfarm households are hit hardest as they tend to be net food consumers with high food budget shares, but farm households also experience real income losses given that many of them are net buyers of food. The impacts of local climate change are less clear given the ambiguous predictions of global climate models (GCMs) with respect to future rainfall patterns in Yemen. Local climate change impacts manifest itself in long term yield changes, which differ between two alternative climate scenarios considered, with implications for income and nutrition
... To quantify the impacts of climate change and droughts on the Syrian economy, this report lin... more ... To quantify the impacts of climate change and droughts on the Syrian economy, this report links results from crop models with global ... The challenge of modeling climate change effects arises in the wide-ranging nature of processes involved in the working of markets, ecosystems ...
Food insecurity is a multi-dimensional challenge and nutrition is a central part of achieving foo... more Food insecurity is a multi-dimensional challenge and nutrition is a central part of achieving food security. Overcoming malnutrition, especially among children, is not only important for achieving food security, but also important for realizing successful future economic development. However, in the Arab world, on average every fifth child younger than five is malnourished, while in Egypt and Sudan about every third and in Yemen almost two thirds of children are stunted. To overcome this unacceptable situation, this paper has raised a couple of important policy questions and provided two initial suggestions for action that are based on global experiences. Questions that need to be urgently addressed are: why is it that economic growth (and rising incomes) does not seem to improve nutrition in Arab countries? How can public resources be better targeted at improving food and nutrition security? Global experiences show that the nutrition part of food security tends to be underfunded in...
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), established in 1975, provides research-... more The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), established in 1975, provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. The Institute conducts research, communicates results, optimizes partnerships, and builds capacity to ensure sustainable food production, promote healthy food systems, improve markets and trade, transform agriculture, build resilience, and strengthen institutions and governance. Gender is considered in all of the Institute's work. IFPRI collaborates with partners around the world, including development implementers, public institutions, the private sector, and farmers' organizations.
Food insecurity at the national and household level not only is a consequence of conflict but can... more Food insecurity at the national and household level not only is a consequence of conflict but can also cause and drive conflicts. This paper makes the case for an even higher priority for food security-related policies and programs in conflict-prone countries. Such policies and programs have the potential to build resilience to conflict by not only helping countries and people cope with and recover from conflict, but also contributing to preventing conflicts and supporting economic development more broadly-that is, helping countries and people become even better off. Based on this definition and a new conceptual framework, the paper offers several insights from four case studies on Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. First, conflicts are often related to other shocks such as economic crises, price shocks, and natural disasters. Second, increasing subsidies is a favored policy measure in times of crisis; however, such measures do not qualify as resilience building. Third, climate change adaptation should be an integral part of conflict prevention in part because climate change is expected to significantly increase the likelihood of conflict in the future. Fourth, building price information systems, introducing and expanding credit and insurance markets, geographic targeting of social safety nets, and building functioning and effective institutions are key measures for building resilience to conflict. Finally, the paper points to several important knowledge gaps.
Climate Change Economics, 2013
There is broad consensus among scientists that climate change is altering weather patterns around... more There is broad consensus among scientists that climate change is altering weather patterns around the world. However, economists are only beginning to develop comprehensive tools that allow for the quantification of such weather changes on countries' economies and people. This paper presents a modeling suite that links the downscaling of global climate models, crop modeling, global economic modeling, and sub-national-level dynamic computable equilibrium modeling. Important to note is that this approach allows for decomposing the potential global and local economic effects on countries, including various economic sectors and different household groups. We apply this modeling suite to Syria, a relevant case study given the country's location in a region that is consistently projected to be among those hit hardest by climate change. We find that, despite a certain degree of endogenous adaptation, local impacts of climate change (through declining yields) are likely to affect Syria beyond the agricultural sector and farmers and also reduce economy-wide growth and incomes of urban households in the long term. The overall effects of global climate change (through higher food prices) are also negative, but some farmers may reap the benefit of higher prices. Combining local and global climate change scenarios shows welfare losses across all rural and urban household groups, whereas the poorest household groups are the hardest hit.
This paper uses both a global and local perspective to assess the impacts of climate change on th... more This paper uses both a global and local perspective to assess the impacts of climate change on the Yemeni economy, agriculture, and household income and food security. The major impact channels of climate change are through changing world food prices as a result of global food scarcities, long-term local yield changes as a result of temperature and rainfall variations, and
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Papers by Perrihan Al-riffai