The Near East and North Africa region faces the challenge of addressing a wide range of complex and intertwined issues associated with the management of natural resources, particularly land and water. The region’s endowment with suitable agricultural land and freshwater resources is low for physical and climatic reasons and per capita share of these resources has continuously shrank as a result of population growth and environmental degradation. Water quality degradation resulting from the different uses, including agriculture, overdraft of groundwater and climate change are constraining further the resources. Moreover, an important share of the water resources come from outside the region. The increasing gap between water supply and demand is impacting development and affecting all sectors, including environment.

The region has a long history of initiatives that have sought to improve water resources and cropland management practices. Lessons have been learned and can be shared, while there is a critical need to inject fresh thinking into the process of finding sustainable solutions to water scarcity problems. To address these problems a Pilot Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity is designed within the SO2 framework . The project is expected to deliver all its outputs by 31 December 2013.