• Accelerating rural transformation in the Near East and North Africa region increasingly relies on digital innovation and the effective use of science- and technology-based solutions across agrifood systems. Digital tools support improved agricultural practices, facilitate access to markets and finance, strengthen mechanization and agritech uptake, and create new opportunities that make agriculture more attractive to rural youth.
• Digital transformation enables smallholders, cooperatives, and rural micro, small and medium enterprises to increase productivity, improve bargaining power, diversify income sources, and access education and advisory services, contributing to more inclusive and resilient rural economies.
• Progress remains constrained by persistent barriers, including weak rural infrastructure, limited connectivity, gaps in governance and regulatory frameworks, digital illiteracy and skills shortages, low affordability of digital services, limited awareness of benefits, climate-related risks, and mismatches between the supply of digital solutions and local demand.
• Scaling and sustaining digital transformation requires strong collaboration between public and private actors. FAO plays a convening and enabling role by supporting policy dialogue, fostering partnerships, and promoting coordinated digital ecosystems that respond to country needs.
• Digital integration and capacity development are embedded across all Regional Priorities, including digital advisory services for inclusive rural development, traceability and transparency tools for food safety and quality, and real-time water and weather monitoring for resilient and climate-smart agriculture.
• FAORNE’s initiatives embed the development of digital public goods and services, the creation of new evidence-based solutions, and the adaptation of existing tools and best practices to local contexts, including demand needs, language, literacy levels, infrastructure and cultural limitations.
• The promotion and adaptation of artificial intelligence is a major trend in the region, with small-scale and locally adapted AI solutions empowering farmers through accessible, low-resource decision-support tools.
• In line with the FAO Science and Innovation Strategy and its Action Plan 2026–2029, FAO RNE aims to advance affordable and accessible digital solutions for sustainable agriculture and rural development, contributing to the elimination of hunger and poverty.

FAO contributes to advancing the digitalization of agrifood systems in the NENA region by:

• Establishing international and regional partnerships with UN agencies, research institutions, innovation hubs and development partners to accelerate digital innovation diffusion and investment across countries.
• Generating globally relevant evidence and analytics to identify digital transformation gaps, opportunities and priority needs in agrifood systems, supporting international alignment and policy coherence.
• Supporting countries to develop and operationalize national digital agriculture policies, Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) regulatory frameworks and data governance systems to enable responsible and inclusive digital innovation.
• Modernizing national agrifood data systems by deploying digital tools and technologies that improve data generation, monitoring and reporting capacities for evidence-based planning.
• Strengthening national agrifood innovation ecosystems by enabling coordinated collaboration among government entities, research organizations, private sector actors and producer groups.
• Facilitating local adaptation and scaling of effective digital technologies and innovations so they can operate sustainably in diverse agro-ecological, cultural and market contexts.
• Building institutional, extension and community-level capacities to adopt and effectively use digital tools through targeted training, advisory support and peer-learning mechanisms.
• Expanding equitable access for small-scale producers, family farmers and MSMEs to practical, context-appropriate digital solutions that enhance production, resilience and market participation.

• According to ITU data, despite high levels of rural electrification in most NENA countries, access remains significantly lower in several states: Yemen (75 percent), Libya (73 percent, 2022), Syria (73 percent), Sudan (54 percent), and Mauritania (50.3 percent, 2022).
• As of 2024, rural smartphone ownership in the NENA region is moderately high, averaging around 69 percent across countries with available data; however, substantial disparities persist, with ownership exceeding 85 percent in high-income Gulf countries but falling below 55 percent in lower-income countries such as Egypt and Mauritania. · In many African countries, including parts of the NENA region, the cost of mobile broadband exceeds 4 percent of GNI per capita—more than double the UN affordability benchmark of 2 percent.
• In rural areas of the Arab States, only 51 percent of people used the Internet in 2023, with a particularly wide disparity between GCC countries and low-income countries, where the gap reaches more than 50 percentage points.
• Digital literacy levels and the specific digital-solution needs of rural populations in the NENA region remain insufficiently assessed and documented. This limits the ability of institutions and service providers to design appropriate support mechanisms and slows the adoption and effective use of digital tools across agrifood systems.
• In the NENA region (excluding Gulf states), only about 32 percent of the rural population reports having an account at a bank or similar financial institution or having used a mobile-money service in the past year.