17 june 2008
World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD),
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Today, 17 June, is World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD), and this year’s theme is Combating Land Degradation for Sustainable Agriculture.
On this important occasion, the Global Mechanism (GM) has decided to celebrate by delivering a special message to its constituencies, drawing attention to the potential of the UNCCD as the main policy forum that matches food security, climate resilience and rural development through sustainable land management (SLM).
Land management is all about management of natural resources such as soil, water and vegetation. The High Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Biodiversity, held at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy, 3-5 June 2008, was a recent highlight in the debate on investments in agriculture, community forestry, water management and rural development.
The current strategy and policy debates around climate resilience, sustainable agriculture and food security, point to the conclusion that none of these global challenges and threats to human well-being should be tackled in isolation. Instead, they should be seen as part of national development programming at country level – supported by effective international policy making processes and new financial mechanisms.
The UNCCD finds itself at the interface of highly dynamic policy processes, where innovative and forward-looking interactions offer enormous potential for the Convention.
The GM supports developing countries in closing the considerable knowledge gap on financial opportunities of the emerging ,climate change finance regime. The UNCCD through policy and strategy development at international level, and the GM through its direct support to countries and sub-regional institutions, will play an instrumental role by assisting country Parties in integrating innovative financing opportunities, such as vertical climate funds, into development programming frameworks at the country level.
On World Day to Combat Desertification, the GM stands ready, in close cooperation with the UNCCD Secretariat, to induce and strengthen strategic discussions on finance for UNCCD implementation with all its partners, in particular with the International Fund for Agricultural Development – IFAD – its host and the world’s second largest investment fund for SLM.
Combating Land Degradation for Sustainable Agriculture,
Christina Dian Parmionova |
