Economics
Rising Food Costs Push Arab World’s Vulnerable to Breaking Point
Ramadan for many in North Africa this year is a confrontation with economic reality and governments are under pressure over the cost of living.
Muslims perform the first Tarawih prayer of Ramadan at Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Egypt on April 1.
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Seated around the dining table, the family of four stares blankly at pictures of food sketched on the tablecloth. “Tonight,” the father says, “we’re coloring for dinner.”
The scene in a cartoon in a Moroccan newspaper speaks to the predicament facing the kingdom’s 37 million people and their peers across North Africa as the Muslim world marks Ramadan. Normally characterized by abstention broken by plentiful sunset feasts, the holy month for many this year is a confrontation with painful economic reality.