The Challenge
Ecologically, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is notable for its extreme dryness. MENA contains the two largest deserts in the world, the Sahara and the Arabian, and eight of the world’s ten most water- scarce countries. Climate change makes this a greater challenge for the region, bringing increasingly longer dry seasons and hotter heatwaves that put a strain on sparse water resources.
The stress of drought on agricultural workers has forced many to migrate to urban areas for work. In turn, many cities, rushing to meet the water needs of a growing population, have turned to unsustainable solutions and are extracting water from underground reservoirs at a rate that exceeds its renewal.
Water pollution, in addition to solid-waste and air pollution, also affects the MENA region. Most of the countries in the region lack adequate solid-waste management. In addition, industries like cement, phosphate, and coal fill the air with pollution on a daily basis, creating unsafe conditions for those living nearby. These environmental challenges compound economic and political instability in the region, fueling food insecurity and significant migration within and out of the region.
Our Solutions
Given the issues outlined above, there is considerable need for well-organized and effective environmental groups at the grassroots level in the MENA region. In recent years, grassroots movements have emerged in the region to address many environmental issues, but many lack access to the resources necessary to accomplish their goals.
With our established method of grantmaking to support the growth of grassroots environmental movements, Global Greengrants aims to become a catalyst for grassroots-led systems change in the MENA region. As with all Global Greengrants’ programs, our grantmaking in MENA takes an intersectional approach and seeks to support the leadership and engagement of women, youth, persons with disability, and other under-represented populations in environmental justice movements.
