Eliminating poverty is key to combating desertification

Tackling rural poverty as a means of combating desertification will be among the topics for discussion at a side event sponsored by the International Fund For Agricultural Development (IFAD) on Tuesday, 2 September 2003. Presentations will be followed by a 10-minute video profiling the Cauto River watershed project in Cuba.

The side event will be held from 12:45 to 13:45 on Tuesday, 2 September in Meeting Room 3 at the Palacio de Convenciones, Havana, Cuba.

Schedule of events:

• Opening remarks by the President of IFAD, Mr. Lennart Bage
  
• Intervention strategies in Latin America and the Caribbean and IFAD’s investment programme in arid and semi-arid zones, to be presented by Raquel Peña-Montenegro, Director of IFAD’s Latin America and the Caribbean Division.
  
• IFAD’s support to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and its collaboration with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), to be presented by Rodney Cooke, Director of the Technical Advisory Division.
  
• The resource mobilization strategy that the Global Mechanism is implementing in cooperation with members of its Facilitation Committee, to be presented by Per Rydén, Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD.
  
• Video featuring the Cauto River watershed project in Cuba
  
• Open discussion