Assem Abu Hatab

Professor and a Senior Development Economist, Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), Uppsala University

Assem Abu Hatab is a Professor and a Senior Development Economist at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) at Uppsala University and is associated with the Department of Economics at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Sweden. Abu Hatab specializes in applied development economics, focusing extensively on the economics and sustainable management of food systems and natural resources in the Middle East and North Africa region. His current research is dedicated to exploring the resilience of social-ecological systems amidst natural-induced changes and external disturbances. Abu Hatab has published 119 peer-reviewed articles, along with numerous global reports and popular science pieces. Previously, Abu Hatab has occupied various academic roles at SLU, the Centre for Middle East Studies at Lund University in Sweden, the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University in the USA, Northwest A&F University in China, and Suez Canal University in Egypt. From 2018 to 2022, Abu Hatab served as a lead author for the 6th IPCC Assessment Report. In 2023, he was selected as a member of the drafting team for the report of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) on “Strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition in the context of urbanization and rural transformation.” Additionally, he was chosen in 2022 as a Coordinating Lead Author for the special report by the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC) on the climate-water-energy-food-ecosystems nexus. In 2022, the Swedish Government appointed him to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).