The UN General Assembly proclaimed 17 June as the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought in 1994, and at the same time, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted. This World Day is devoted to promoting awareness of the need for international cooperation to combat desertification and the effects of drought, and on the implementation of the UNCCD.

The United Nations estimates that the livelihoods of over a billion and a half people are threatened by the continuing spread of deserts and the loss of productive arable land. Desertification is a major world environmental issue and it’s not just in developing countries, but also in areas of North America and in Southern Europe.

Inevitably among those who are most affected are the rural poor whose very existence depends on the production of subsistence crops and the survival of livestock. Population pressures and lack of basic resources force many people to resort to measures which exploit and further deplete their own land. IFAD is trying to help communities reverse this trend. The Fund has so far committed over three billion dollars for projects in dryland areas to fight land degradation.

The productive capacity of the land declines through a complex interaction of physical, biological, political, social, cultural and economic processes. Therefore the approach to combating desertification must be broad-based and also recognise that local populations possess a wealth of knowledge about their environments upon which interventions can be based.

Indigenous knowledge is directly tied to the sustainable use and maintenance of a healthy and vibrant ecosystem. Many successful examples of regenerating ecosystems and supporting local livelihoods are found in areas where users themselves have established a management structure, or management is based upon an indigenous system. Further efforts are needed to document traditional sustainable farming systems and best practices, e.g. the role of trees and traditional management practices in the savannah zones of Africa. It is also noted that not all indigenous methods and technologies are appropriate, so this challenge is being met by designing projects that blend traditional and new technologies and involve the affected groups in the decision-making progress.

As part of the solution to the problem of desertification, a Global Mechanism (GM) was established under the authority of the UN CCD, which is housed and supported by IFAD. Like the UNCCD, the GM breaks much new ground, pioneering a ''bottom-up'' approach that starts with the people actually affected by the crisis and replaces the concept of aid with one of partnership.