Nabil Elarabi, the secretary general of the Arab League, has asked the countries of the league to pump money into Sudan to help achieve food self-sufficiency for the whole Arab world, describing Sudan as ‘the Arab food basket’. Elarabi assured the convention that that the Arab League was paying great attention to the food security issue in the Arab world because they considered it a security issue, pointing out that the Arab League began to pay attention to this issue after the first economic summit in Kuwait in 2009. The second economic summit in Sharm El-Sheikh and the Riyadh summit saw the announcement of the Arab food security initiative by Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. Elarabi added that the fourth economic summit was expected to take place in Tunisia. He also revealed that steps were being taken in relation to the overall economic region and customs union, despite the existence of a number of hindrances, explaining that the strong bonds between Arab nations could help secure economic integration in the region. Elarabi pointed out that taking decisions was easier than executing them, explaining that the coming stage required that all decisions already taken be enacted.
