Aziz Razzouki

Climate change is becoming an increasingly important source of economic and health vulnerability in developing countries. This study examines the dynamic relationship between climate change and poverty across 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from 2000 to 2023. Poverty is captured through two indicators: household consumption expenditure, the monetary dimension, and infant mortality, the non-monetary dimension. Methodologically, the analysis relies on a panel autoregressive distributed lag (panel ARDL) model, estimated using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Mean Group (MG) approaches. The results reveal a long-run relationship among climatic variables, macroeconomic factors, and poverty-related indicators. In the long run, precipitation is associated with a decline in household consumption expenditure, while temperature is associated with higher infant mortality, indicating a deterioration in both monetary and health-related well-being under changing climatic conditions. In the short run, rising temperatures are also associated with lower household consumption expenditure, revealing the immediate vulnerability of living standards to climate shocks. In addition, GDP per capita is associated with higher household consumption and lower infant mortality, while education is associated with lower health-related poverty. Inflation appears to exacerbate poverty, whereas the positive association between health expenditure and infant mortality suggests reverse causality or inefficiencies in the allocation of health resources. These findings highlight the need to articulate climate adaptation strategy, macroeconomic stability, education investment, and improved efficiency of health spending in order to achieve sustainable reduction in poverty in the MENA region.

The concept of virtual water is currently one of the most important issues in water resource management, especially in a context marked by structural water scarcity. Beyond the analysis of virtual water flows, which has been widely studied in the literature, this study aims to better understand the relationship between virtual water exports and economic growth. This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between Morocco’s economic growth and agricultural virtual water exports to the European Union over the period of 1986–2023. An ARDL model was used based on annual data to test cointegration and estimate short- and long-term effects, controlling for gross fixed capital formation and agricultural value added. The bounds test confirms the existence of a stable long-term relationship between the variables. The results suggest that export specialization may be associated with foreign earnings and agricultural activity while also coinciding with greater pressure on resources and potential adaptation costs, especially for blue water resources. However, estimates indicate that in the long term, investment is positively and significantly associated with growth, while virtual water exports are associated with a negative effect on GDP, suggesting that export gains may be offset by increasing water constraints and sectoral trade-offs, and that agricultural value added mainly influences short-term dynamics. The results highlight the importance of integrating water footprint and virtual water trade concepts, as well as climate constraints, into agricultural and trade strategy planning while strengthening policies on water efficiency, innovation, and governance.

The applied literature on the MENA region remains fragmented between studies focused on the economic determinants of agricultural value added and climate and agriculture analyses via food security, without jointly assessing productive and climatic factors. This article fills that gap by measuring the combined effects of temperature, precipitation, capital, labor, and arable land on agricultural value added (VAAG) across 21 MENA countries over 1990–2024. We estimate a fixed effects model with cluster-robust standard errors and verify robustness using System GMM. The results indicate that rising temperatures are associated with a significant decline in VAAG, whereas moderate and regular rainfall, as well as endowments of capital, labor, and arable land, exert positive effects. Theoretically, the study highlights, over a long horizon and a reasonably homogeneous regional scope, the differentiated roles of thermal constraints and water availability, with inference strengthened by System GMM as a robustness check. Operationally, the findings support policies for efficient irrigation, decentralized storage, and managed aquifer recharge, alongside financial incentives and training to accelerate the adoption of resilient techniques, while safeguarding arable land. Together, these measures provide concrete levers to strengthen agricultural resilience in the MENA region.