Stopping Land Degradation Key To Lifting One Billion People Out Of Poverty

World Bank Urges Renewed International Commitment to Combat Desertification at Convention in Havana

September 3, 2003—The World Bank yesterday called upon all stakeholders - both rich and poor countries alike -of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to do more to address land degradation and take concrete implementation actions that are required to meet the objectives of the Convention. The call came at the Sixth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification currently taking place in Havana, Cuba.

According to the United Nations, drought and desertification threaten the livelihoods of over 1 billion people in more than 110 countries around the world who depend on land for most of their needs, and usually the world's poorest in over one hundred countries are threatened.. Desertification is a worldwide problem directly affecting 250 million people and a third of the earth's land surface or over 4 billion hectares.

“The World Bank views effective implementation of the UNCCD, especially at local levels, as a key tool not only in addressing land degradation in affected countries, but also for combating poverty at community and national levels,” said Ian Johnson, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development.

Johnson emphasized that, “It is critical that the focus of the international community be on aggressive on-the-ground implementation with demonstrable and monitorable results. The World Bank will continue to work with affected Country Parties and other partners to realize the goals of the UNCCD and sustainable development.”

As of today, 188 countries have ratified the Convention. Yet, there are still unprecedented challenges. With an extra 2 billion people to feed over the next quarter century, food production will have to double on less land and less water. The estimates are 5 to 12 million hectares being lost annually to severe land degradation. At the same time water scarcity is rapidly expanding, with nearly two-thirds of the world's population expected to be living in water-scarce or water-stressed areas by 2025.

The World Bank has invested more than US $1.82 billion in Land Management operations in member countries, and has so far provided about US $2.5 million of direct grant financing to the Global Mechanism (GM) of the UNCCD to support the efforts of affected member countries in implementing CCD activities.

“If the international community is to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015,” said Johnson, “significant improvements in sustainable agricultural productivity are critical.” In this regard, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has, since 1971, received more than US $930 million in unrestricted grant financing from the World Bank in support of its activities in enhancing food crops production, reducing hunger, and promoting the sound management of natural resources.

“The nascent and emerging global carbon emissions reduction market,” said Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank Environment Director, “while promoting sustainable development, also offers a learning-by-doing opportunity to member countries to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.” To date, Bank's Carbon Finance operations have 48 projects in the portfolio for a total of US $266.4 million, and these have leveraged additional underlying project financing of US $2.6 billion.

The World Bank's Carbon Finance Program demonstrates the potential of market-based public/private initiatives to invest in sustainable land management interventions that include both local and global benefits. In particular, the Bank's newly-established BioCarbon Fund provides an opportunity to channel private capital to rural poverty reduction and sustainable natural resource use projects in the poorest areas of the world. The BioCarbon Fund will specifically operationalize the synergies and promote the objectives of the 3 Rio Conventions on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification - i.e., the UNCBD, UNFCCC, and UNCCD respectively.

In addition, the World Bank is exploring ways of working with IFAD and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD on ways and means of raising carbon financing for drylands management projects.

“The value of environmental services provided by natural ecosystems is usually not captured by the market, or is lost due to a lack of incentives and mismanagement,” explained Georgieva. “Land users generally receive no compensation for the services their lands generate for others, and therefore have little economic incentive to take these services into account in making decisions about land use.” Traditional responses to this problem have tended to be regulatory and or remedial, and have largely been ineffective and far more expensive than preventive measures.

The World Bank's innovative work on payment for environmental services responds to this gap by developing systems in which land owners/users are paid for the environmental services they generate, thus aligning their incentives with those of society as a whole. The World Bank is working with several countries, particularly in Central and South America, to develop Payment for Environmental Services systems that could help substitute for the absence of markets and promote sustainable land management. There are more than US $36 million of current World Bank investments in pilot programs in Latin America alone.

Desertification is not the natural expansion of existing deserts but the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas. It is a gradual process of soil productivity loss and the thinning out of the vegetative cover because of human activities and climatic variations such as prolonged droughts and floods. What is alarming is that though the land's topsoil, if mistreated, can be blown and washed away in a few seasons, it takes centuries to build up. Among human causal factors are overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and poor irrigation practices. Such overexploitation is generally caused by economic and social pressure, ignorance, war, and drought.

Useful links: For more information on the World Bank's sustainable development work, see the website: www.worldbank.org/sustainabledevelopment and www.worldbank.org/desertification.org

UN CONFERENCE AGAINST DESERTIFICATION AND DROUGHT

Sustainability for human survival

BY ORFILIO PELÁEZ AND ALDO MADRUGA—Granma daily staff writers—August 28, 2003

THE prospects of alleviating or reversing the growing deterioration of humans’ relationship with nature were expressed yesterday at the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention against Desertification and Drought in Havana, in which representatives from more than 175 countries are taking part.

Amongst the deliberations of the respective groups of regional experts and different commissions and for the benefit of those who champion a model of sustainable development, it was fully acknowledged that there is an urgent need to progress towards effective solutions that can successfully combat land degradation and drought, phenomena that are closely related to poverty, food insecurity, environmental imbalances and an intensification of migration and social conflicts.

However, the issue over funding for the implementation of such projects generated profound reflection in the plenary debate.

The most recurrent themes concerning the application of the Convention were how to generate new financial resources to combat these disasters and the search for mechanisms to guarantee their clear and effective use in the most strategic and humane way possible.

Mr. Per Ryden, assistant general secretary of the so-called Global Mechanism, presented a detailed report on the various programs that are underway, and particularly on the management of funds allocated to projects by this organization, which has been the convention’s financial agency for the last five years.

The Swiss delegation declared itself in favor of allocating more funds to anti-desertification and drought projects but also stressed the need for greater integration among the affected countries and more clarity and precision in the action programs of each one of them.

For his part, the Tanzanian representative requested that in respect of the resources currently available, top priority must be given to concrete projects to aid rural areas and communities, particularly those in the Third World that are the most affected by this situation.

NGO members stated that despite the fact that their presence on the facilitating committee had been agreed in previous meetings, as yet this had not been made possible and requested the right to participate more fully within this structure.

The South African delegation explained an ongoing strategy to take resources from the private sector and extend funding possibilities within the national program in order to combat soil infertility and the poverty suffered by millions of the country’s population.

They urged the Global Mechanism to continue to decisively support peoples who are victims of this phenomenon, and do so in the most dynamic and effective way possible, in coordination with other UN programs and international financial organizations that are morally and ethically committed to helping the poorest sections of the global community.

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The United Nations meeting in Johannesburg a year or so ago, was in part, against changing anything that would environmentally impact the land. The grandiose ideas stated by UNCCD are just so many words, little action. Great strides have been taken with some successes to create farms that are now growing shrimps and many types of halophytes (salt-tolerating plants) including a particular species of sea asparagus or salicornia whose seeds produce oil for cooking or facial cream and whose leaves and branches are used for fodder and fuel. Tilapia alone could feed most of the world, not just the impoverished. There is of course the problem of politics, dictatorships, wars and just plain jealousy.

Desertification has had nothing to do with the success of these farms and will only serve to complicate an already complicated situation. Read the following paragraph and ask yourself where this desert is.....

“ Desertification is not the natural expansion of existing deserts but the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas. It is a gradual process of soil productivity loss and the thinning out of the vegetative cover because of human activities and climatic variations such as prolonged droughts and floods. What is alarming is that though the land's topsoil, if mistreated, can be blown and washed away in a few seasons, it takes centuries to build up. Among human causal factors are overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and poor irrigation practices. Such overexploitation is generally caused by economic and social pressure, ignorance, war, and drought.”

Poor people need fuel to heat their homes; they naturally get that from the land. What do the environmentalists say about fuel for heating? Some small towns are still without water directly to the home and electricity. What do the environmentalists say about that? What UN programs have ever stopped poverty with out letting the people improve their lives with the barest necessities like water and heat. The World Bank would do well to look at some of their partners a little more closely.

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