At the Roundtable of Parliamentarians, COP6

03 September 2003

Distinguished Parliamentarians,
Friends and Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to address you here today during the fifth Round Table of Members of Parliament. I know I’m not alone when I say how appreciative I am of your efforts to raise awareness and support for the Convention within your governments and countries.

At my organization, IFAD, we are confronted by the human toll taken by land degradation and desertification each day. We work with subsistence farmers, herders, day labourers and others whose survival depends upon the sustainable use of fragile lands and water.

Yet increasingly, in Latin America, Asia and Africa, desertification is becoming a major cause of human misery

The challenge is especially critical in sub-Saharan Africa where the majority of people who live in dryland areas struggle with persistent poverty. Indeed, Africa is the only area in the world where poverty has worsened in recent years. Reversing this trend has to be our highest priority.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Poverty and desertification are co-dependent. Each feeds the other.

Three quarters of the world’s poorest people – more than 900 million women, men and children – live in rural areas of the world.

Most farm small plots of land and rely on agriculture to survive.

When land degradation and desertification set in – often as a consequence of drought, population growth, over-grazing or over- plowing – the poorest people are the most vulnerable.

With such megre land holdings, poor farmers seldom have the luxury of time to allow their land to go fallow and recover. Instead, they continue to mine what little goodness remains in the soil. Eventually, croplands become exhausted and in dryland areas, desertification grows.

A spiral of destruction – twinning increased land degradation with increased poverty – becomes inescapable.

As land, water and food grow more scarce, millions of these poor people become environmental refugees, migrating to neighbouring lands and urban centres where their lives may not be much improved.

The cause-and-effect relationship between rural poverty and environmental degradation is clear. So too is the solution. We must break the cycle.

For 25 years now, IFAD has been committed to fighting poverty in rural areas, but in a very specific way.

It is our belief that if poverty is to be truly eradicated, poor rural dwellers must be able to shape and direct their own destinies.

For that reason, we focus on three key areas:

• strengthening the capacities of subsistence farmers and poor rural people, as well as their organizations
• improving access to land, water and other natural resources, as well as technology
• increasing access to credit, financial services and markets

IFAD also plays a catalytic role in bringing together donors, non-governmental organizations and community groups working at the grass-roots level.

We pay special attention to the unique barriers faced by women, ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. Because reducing poverty ultimately requires rebalancing power.

Too often, rural poor people have little or no say in the decisions and policies that affect their lives and perpetuate their poverty. We work to create an enabling environment – one that builds skills and opportunities so that rural poor people themselves become agents of change.

Our commitment to investing in areas prone to land degradation actually pre-dates the establishment of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

In 1986, for example, IFAD launched a special programme to combat drought and desertification in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the 10 years that followed, 47 projects and programmes worth more than 700 million US dollars were initiated in 24 countries.

Today, that special programme has become part of our everyday work. About 70% of IFAD projects are in ecologically fragile or marginal environments. And all IFAD projects are screened for potential adverse affects on the environment, natural resources and local populations

In total, IFAD provides about 75 million US dollars a year to support land and water management programmes whose total investment costs amount to more than 200 million US dollars a year.

In fact, it is because of IFAD’s extensive experience in dryland areas that it was chosen to house the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD in 1997. Our partnership with the GM has continued to grow and evolve, ever since.

In consultation with its UNCCD Facilitation Committee partners, IFAD is currently exploring the potential for further integration of the GM into IFAD, particularly in the areas of resource mobilization, communication and advocacy, and design and preparation of projects.

It is my belief that better integration of the GM within IFAD will enable both to seize new opportunities in accessing innovative financing to support the rural poor and the Convention.

In addition to our work with the GM, IFAD has recently become an Executing Agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It’s a role that enables IFAD to link projects addressing land degradation, to poverty reduction and development concerns.

We also host the International Land Coalition, which increases rural poor people’s access to land and other natural resources by building alliances with development partners, such as non-governmental organizations, civil society groups and international organizations.

Ladies and gentlemen,

These are just some of the investments, initiatives and partnerships that reflect IFAD’s ongoing commitment to the Convention.

But, to illustrate how these activities make a difference in the lives of those who struggle with rural poverty and land degradation, I’d like to tell you about just one of our projects.

Seventeen years ago, a group of sheep herders in eastern Morocco went to their government to ask for help. A persistent drought had severely degraded their rangelands, while areas around wells and small lakes had become overgrazed. The flocks were suffering and the herders’ incomes had plummeted. Various solutions had been tried but all had failed. None adequately considered the complex social organization of local tribes, their lineage and kinship groups.

When asked for assistance, IFAD designed a project that began bringing all the herders together in ways that respected their tribal structures.

Eventually, after years of negotiations, virtually all herders in a region of over three-million hectares were joined together under 34 cooperatives. A total of 450 000 hectares of degraded rangeland was rehabilitated as a consequence.

Empowered and self-reliant, today the herders’ cooperatives are a model for sustainable land management in dryland areas around the world.

Ladies and gentlemen,

As this example shows, together we can go a long way to improving the wellbeing of poor rural people in dryland areas. Together we can break the spiral of destruction that undermines sustainable economic growth that threatens rural livelihoods and displaces millions of people.

I invite you now to visit IFAD’s display in the exhibition hall to learn more about our efforts to combat rural poverty and desertification.

Thank you.