FOOD SECURITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: A CONCEPTUAL AND POLICY ANALYSIS

Abstract

Food security represents a critical strategic enabler of sustainable development, yet its multidimensional contribution to national sustainability indicators remains insufficiently examined in resource-constrained, import-dependent contexts. This study investigates how food security contributes to achieving strategic sustainable development indicators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), examining the economic, social, environmental, innovation, and governance dimensions of this relationship. Employing a systematic qualitative descriptive–analytical design, the study applies Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) to a corpus of 44 documents comprising peer-reviewed articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science (Q1–Q2), international institutional reports (FAO, UNDP, World Bank), and official UAE policy documents (2020–2024). Findings reveal that while the UAE has constructed a sophisticated food security governance architecture anchored in the National Food Security Strategy 2051, significant implementation gaps persist, particularly in social equity and environmental scaling. The study advances an integrated analytical framework linking food security to sustainable development indicators and proposes ten strategic recommendations to strengthen policy coherence, supply chain resilience, and sustainability integration. Conceptual generalizability to comparable resource-constrained economies is discussed.