Land degradation affects more than one billion people and 40 per cent of the Earth's surface. When this degradation occurs in drylands, it is called desertification.
Celebrated each year on June 17, the World Day to Combat Desertification is part of a United Nations campaign to limit environmental deterioration. Ten years ago today the United Nations adopted the Convention to Combat Desertification. This year's theme, “Social Dimensions of Desertification: Migration and Poverty” examines the human toll, as people are driven from once fertile lands and consigned to a life of deepening poverty.
Contrary to popular belief, desertification does not refer to advancing deserts. It is a slow process in which separate areas of degraded drylands spread and merge together, creating desert-like conditions. As vegetative cover thins and erosion occurs, topsoil that has taken centuries to build up risks blowing or washing away in just a few seasons.
Stripped of its fertility, land no longer supports people and communities. Desertification affects the livelihoods of 650 million poor and marginalized people in 110 countries and potentially threatens the more than one billion people living on drylands. In addition, more than 135 million people are at risk of forced migration because once productive land no longer feeds them or provides pastures for their herds.
The poor often take desperate measures to survive. They may farm land that is already degraded even though it is increasingly unable to meet their needs. As land quality falls, poverty deepens. Desertification is therefore both a cause and a consequence of rural poverty.
A number of factors contribute to desertification, including climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, and inappropriate agricultural policies and practices. Better farming practices and conservation measures can help to reduce the damage that causes desertification. Fighting desertification is essential to ensuring the long-term productivity of drylands. Each year, 12 million hectares are lost to desertification - enough land to grow 20 million tonnes of grain.
The eradication of rural poverty is closely linked to the fight against desertification. The majority of the world's poorest people - 900 million men, women and children - live in rural areas of developing countries, where they depend on agriculture and related activities for their survival. IFAD's long experience shows that even the poorest farmers know the importance of protecting the environment and they are eager to adopt practices that encourage the sustainable use of land and water.
Global environmental initiatives and IFAD
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted by governments in 1994 and came into force in 1996. It was the third convention envisaged by the Earth Summit, held in Rio in 1992 - the others dealt with biodiversity and climate change. Since 1997, IFAD has hosted the convention's Global Mechanism, which acts as a broker for a network of partners, including affected countries, donors and the private sector - helping to focus their energies on combating desertification. It also mobilises financial resources and ensures that funds are used efficiently and equitably.
IFAD is also an executing agency for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) an independent financial organization that provides grants to developing countries for projects that address global environmental concerns. Since 2003, IFAD has been able to directly access GEF funds for projects concerning land degradation. Previously, IFAD had to go through one of the GEF's implementing agencies, the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Development Programme or the World Bank. This opportunity allows IFAD to better promote sustainable land management and rural development while helping countries to meet their obligations to prevent land degradation under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
IFAD makes progress on these global environmental initiatives through its projects dealing with sustainable land and water management, and poverty. Working with impoverished communities in some of the most remote and harsh environments in the world, IFAD promotes community-based approaches to natural resource management.
Over the past 25 years, IFAD has committed more than USD 3.5 billion to support dryland development and combat land degradation throughout the world. About 70 per cent of IFAD-supported projects are located in ecologically fragile, marginal environments
