Desertification as a global problem

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD): addressing desertification as a global problem. Recognizing the links between poverty and environmental degradation, the UNCCD was established in the wake of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. To date, 175 countries have ratified the Convention as a legally binding framework that contributes to providing a comprehensive answer to problems related to the environment and sustainable livelihoods.
Over 250 million people are directly affected by desertification and one billion people in over 100 countries are at risk. Fighting desertification is essential to ensuring the long-term productivity of inhabited drylands. Unfortunately, past efforts to combat to the ever-increasing problem have often failed, as a result of which the land degradation problem continues to worsen. This is because the causes of desertification are many and complicated, ranging from international trade patterns to the unsustainable land management practices of local communities. Recognizing the need for a fresh approach, more than 100 governments have signed the UNCCD, which aims at promoting effective action through innovative programmes and supportive international partnerships. Countries affected will implement the Convention by developing and carrying out national, sub-regional and regional programmes. Decisive factors for preparing such programmes are detailed in the conventions four regional implementation annexes for Africa (considered a priority because that is where desertification is most severe), Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the northern Mediterranean. The Convention opens an important new phase in the battle against desertification, but it is only a beginning. In particular, governments will need to review their national action programmes (NAPs) on a regular basis and to focus on awareness-raising, education and training, in both developing and developed countries. Desertification can only be reversed through profound changes in local and international behaviour. Step by step, these changes will ultimately lead to sustainable land use and food security for a growing world population. Combating desertification, then, is really just part of a much broader objective: the sustainable development of countries affected by drought and desertification.

Under the UNCCD, desertification is defined as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas, resulting from various factors, including climate variations and human activity."

One quarter of the earths surface is threatened by desertification an area of over

3.6 billion hectares.

Since 1990, 6 million hectares of productive land are lost every year due to land
degradation. The worlds drinking water supplies have fallen by almost two thirds since 1950. Every year, 12 million people die as a result of water shortages or contaminated drinking water. Desertification threatens the livelihoods of one billion people and has already made 135 million people homeless. Every year, desertification generates income losses totalling USD 42 billion. One of the basic premises of the UNCCD is that land degradation is both a cause and a consequence of rural poverty. Therefore, desertification makes for poverty, and poverty makes for further desertification.

IFAD AND THE CCD

The management of natural resources and of the environment has a key role to
play in IFADs poverty-alleviation strategy. Because the rural poor, including farmers, artisanal fisherfolk and the landless depend on the environment for their water, food and livelihoods, there is a common link between environmental degradation and rural poverty.

Approximately 70% of IFAD-supported projects are located in ecologically fragile,

marginal environments that are prone to ongoing and severe environmental degradation and challenges, including land degradation and deforestation, energy issues, water resources, demographic change and population pressures.

IFAD participated actively in the UNCCD and was instrumental during the
interim period between its ratification and the implementation and has assisted a number of countries in preparing their NAPs. In June 1996, IFAD convened the International Forum on Local Area Development to support the implementation of NAPs.

Since 1994, IFAD has increased its partnerships with environmental

organizations and conventions. IFAD hosts the Global Mechanism (GM) of the UNCCD, and is an active member of the Multilateral Finance Institutions Environment Group. Hosting the GM will help mainstream the objectives of the UNCCD into IFADs strategies and programmes at the country, sub-regional and regional levels. This also gives IFAD an opportunity to reinforce its catalytic role in bringing the concerns of the pastoralists and rangeland users to the attention of the global community. In addition to housing the GM, IFAD has intensified its collaboration with the UNCCD by means of technical assistance and resource mobilization.To this effect, IFAD recently approved a second contribution of USD 2.5 million to the UNCCD Support Facility to catalyse voluntary contributions from other sources.

COLLABORATION WITH GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES

Environmental and natural resource management is also addressed through strategic alliances with relevant organizations, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the GM and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

CO N TAC T S

For further information, contact: Communications and Public Affairs Tel + 39 06-54592215 Fax + 39 06 54592143 communications@ifad.org Technical Advisory Division Tel + 39 06 54592451 r.cooke@ifad.org Global Mechanism Tel + 39 06 54592146 Fax + 39 06 54592135 www.gm-unccd.org IFAD Via Del Serafico, 107 00142 Rome, Italy www.ifad.org

WFS FS 03

Produced on the occasion of the Conference of the Parties, COP-V, UNCCD, Geneva, Switzerland: 1-12 October 2001.