The Maghreb's oases systems provide a major contribution to the region's food security, economy and natural resources. Despite this potential, oasis ecosystems are threatened by a range of complex factors related to the expansion of agricultural land and increasing scarcity of water resources. The project, implemented by FAO in Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania from May 2016 to December 2019, brought together key stakeholders to address the lack of available information on the status of oases and to advocate on factual bases shared by all stakeholders and verifiable in the field.

In late April, 2021, deadly cross-border violence resulted in the deaths of 36 Kyrgyz and 19 Tajik citizens.1 To say that the Kyrgyz-Tajik border is complicated would be an understatement. The Soviet collapse in 1991 transformed internal and often overlooked administrative boundaries into suddenly salient and internationally recognized state borders. Villages, farmland, pasture, and infrastructure once shared with little afterthought during the Soviet period today straddle sovereign nations. Exclaves make cross-border travel, commerce, and politics even more complicated.

Nelle ultime due edizioni l’IndiceGlobale della Fame (Global Hunger Index - GHI) aveva approfondito temi che sono tuttora di grande attualità: la denutrizione infantile e la volatilità dei prezzi dei beni alimentari. Gran parte dell’Asia negli ultimi anni ha visto il PIL di diversi Paesi crescere con tassi superiori al 7%, ma la maggiore ricchezza non si è sempre tradotta in unmiglior accesso a un’alimentazione di qualità.

This chapter focuses on the multiple facets and meanings of water and how it is a contested resource. It also explores linkages between SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) and SDG 2 (Zero hunger). Water is essential for all life and integral to the functioning of food systems; similarly, changes in our food systems are essential to achieve SDG 6. And improvements in both are needed to reduce inequities in resources and achievements. As an example, land, food and water rights often go hand in hand, and are marked by gender, caste, racial and other exclusions.