Global Dry Land Alliance: Partnering for Food Security

Your Excellency Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al-Thani
Honourable Delegates and Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
It is a great honour to be here with you today and to participate in this important meeting. IFAD has played a key role in the development of this event. In August, we hosted an informal seminar of the Qatar National Food Security Programme at our headquarters in Rome, where the three Rome-based agencies debated the issues on our agenda here today.

This meeting is taking place at a significant moment, as the international community focuses attention on our joint efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. In the face of food and energy price volatility, along with slow recovery from the financial crisis and global economic downturn, the future is at best unpredictable. We have recently seen a fall in the number of hungry people in the world, but there is no cause for complacency. And some of the most vulnerable women and men are those living in arid and semi arid areas.

In all regions of the developing world, poor rural people often live and work in ecologically fragile and marginal environments where competition for land and limited resources frequently leads to unsustainable land management practices. As you know, when fragile land in arid regions is overexploited, it quickly loses its productive capacity and the results are devastating.

The statistics are shocking. Land degradation affects 40 per cent of the earth’s surface and damages the livelihoods of some 2 billion people living in dry lands.

Despite this, dry lands still play a major role in global agriculture production. About 50 per cent of the world’s livestock is supported by rangelands, and some 44 per cent of cultivated areas are in dry lands. However, more than 12 million hectares of arable land are lost to desertification every year and the rate is rising as a result of climate change.

And climate change also means that dry land countries can expect more frequent droughts and flash floods, more extreme temperatures, falling average rainfall causing ever greater water scarcity, increasing desertification and declining soil fertility. As a result, poor rural people who depend on the land for survival will be forced to migrate or starve.

For rainfed agricultural production systems, the consequences of climate change are extremely serious. To make matters worse, food demand will continue to grow, thus increasing pressure on dry land resources and hindering sufficient growth of agricultural production. This has contributed to food price hikes over the past few years and given rise to legitimate food security concerns, especially in the Arab World, which is home to 5 per cent of the world population and accounts for over 40 per cent of total world cereal imports. In the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which suffer the highest levels of water scarcity and rely the most heavily on desalinization to meet water requirements, about 60 to 90 per cent of food is imported.

To ensure that food supply keeps pace with demand, we urgently need to sustainably intensify agriculture. This is the only solution to some of the biggest challenges facing the world today.

At IFAD, we are determined to increase and maximize the impact of the interventions we support in dry land countries. We have already invested about US$3.5 billion in support of dry land agricultural and rural development. And about 70 per cent of IFAD-supported projects target ecologically fragile and marginal environments.

With a strong track record in tackling land degradation and promoting sustainable rural development and integrated land and water management, IFAD plays a key role in implementing the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. We also support agricultural research by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and other research programmes. Our current investments in innovative and adaptive research and training programmes in dry lands amount to more than US$100 million.

In the framework of our new Climate Change Strategy, we are boosting our support for activities that focus on diversifying livelihoods to reduce risk; improving agricultural techniques and technologies; strengthening community-based natural resource management; and coping with disasters.

IFAD’s experience and the operations we support in dry lands are highly relevant to the vision that the Qatar National Food Security Programme is developing for building a Dry Land Alliance. We have been strong partners since the food security programme was established in 2008. In this context, we look forward to contributing to the first practical steps towards the development and implementation of joint activities in dry lands.

We particularly welcome Qatar’s interest and efforts in ensuring that its large-scale foreign investments for food supply are along “win-win” principles that ensure small-scale local farmers’ interest. A number of IFAD-supported projects, such as that in West Nubaria in Egypt, have also promoted contracting initiatives that provide small farmers with opportunities to access national and international markets. And we will remain available to assist in promoting responsible and sustainable agricultural production in dry lands.

Finally, I should like to recall the inspiring pledge made by His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani during the G77 High Level Forum on Trade and Investment in Doha in December 2004, to commit 0.7 percent of GDP for development assistance and the announcement of US$20 million for the South Fund. Qatar, which is also a founding member of IFAD, can indeed play a significant role in development initiatives in dry lands.

Thank you.

24 September 2010, New York, United States