Enabling poor rural people
to overcome poverty



What is the Global Mechanism?

Established by the First Conference of the Parties (COP1) held in Rome, in September 1997, the Global Mechanism (GM) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is a subsidiary body of the Convention, mandated to "increase the effectiveness and efficiency of existing financial mechanisms…[and]…to promote actions leading to the mobilization and channelling of substantial financial resources to affected developing country Parties" (Article 21).

The GM works with country Parties in mobilizing financial resources, using the emerging practices within the international community of harmonization and alignment with national development priorities, in the context of national budgeting processes, as called for by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

Indeed, recognizing the major implications of the changing international financial architecture, its new modalities for resource allocation and the growing importance attributed to developing countries’ domestic budgeting processes, the GM is committed to translating recommendations to “improve aid effectiveness through strengthening countries’ development strategies and operational frameworks, aligning aid with country priorities, and eliminating duplication” (Paris Declaration) into a more coherent approach to development as a whole and to resource mobilization in particular.

The GM does not to pretend to simplify the complexity of the new international setting and domestic budget allocation processes, but rather to facilitate the understanding of this new context, the opportunities it offers - not least for forming partnerships and delivering as one with a view to protecting rural livelihoods and to safeguarding natural resources for future generations.  In so doing, the GM is fully in line with the approaches taken by international financial institutions (IFIs) to increase investments in sustainable land management (SLM), such as those elaborated in IFAD’s Strategic Framework and Operating Model.

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GM-IFAD partnerships

IFAD as the GM’s host organization

The Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD decided that the GM should be hosted by an existing organization and draw upon the expertise and comparative advantage of this institution in discharging its work.  The First Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD (COP.1), held in Rome from 29 September to 15 October 1997, reinforced that the mandate, objectives and capacity of the host organisation should substantially complement the GM’s work. As the global agency at the forefront of tackling land degradation and reducing rural poverty in countries most affected by desertification, IFAD was selected to host the GM in 1997 at COP.1.

IFAD’s expertise and knowledge in financing projects and programmes and in mobilizing significant resources, together with its broad-based collaboration agreements with other IFIs, were important factors in the selection process for the GM’s host organization.

The GM works closely with IFAD and is supported by the Fund’s administrative structure, while maintaining a separate identity, and reports to the Conference of the Parties (COP) at each of its sessions, through the President of IFAD.

IFAD’s mandate in the UNCCD context

IFAD’s mission is to enable the rural poor to overcome poverty.  Its mandate is thus inextricably linked to tackling land degradation. 

IFAD’s commitment to combating the causes of this global problem is reflected in its investment programmes, grants and policy initiatives.  Indeed, over the past 25 years, IFAD has committed over USD 3.5 billion to supporting dryland development and combating land degradation worldwide.  Seventy percent of IFAD-supported projects are located in ecologically fragile, marginal environments. 

IFAD’s support for UNCCD implementation is further strengthened in its capacity as a GEF executing agency with access to all GEF Focal Area funding. The GEF’s Operational Programme on Sustainable Land Management (OP15) uniquely positions IFAD to link projects addressing land degradation to poverty reduction and development concerns.

The GM-IFAD partnership

The GM and IFAD have worked together on many occasions in mainstreaming UNCCD National Action Programmes (NAPs) into IFAD’s Country and Regional Strategy Opportunities Papers (COSOPS & SRESOPS) and linking new IFAD-supported projects to GM initiatives and UNCCD objectives - with the aim of enhancing resource flows for UNCCD implementation.  The recent review of IFAD-funded programmes and projects related to UNCCD objectives is just one illustration of cooperation between the GM and IFAD and highlights the comparative advantage of housing the GM at IFAD.

In addition, the GM collaborates closely with IFAD’s GEF Unit, to use GEF OP15 finances to attract and mobilize co-financing and for increasing overall financial flows to SLM consistent with a programmatic approach that engenders enhanced impact and sustainability of investments.  The GM continues to work to support IFAD’s GEF interventions so that they adopt a more multi-sectoral and integrated approach, respond to challenges associated with the enabling policy, institutional and legislative environment governing SLM, and are embedded within GM-facilitated national financing strategies and investment frameworks for SLM.

To date, IFAD is the GM’s largest financial contributor.  IFAD resources have enabled the GM to support Action Programmes in 29 countries and 12 sub-regions, in addition to providing technical and financial support to other UNCCD-related initiatives.  IFAD is also one of the GM’s strategic partners in the broader context of its membership of the GM’s Facilitation Committee.

As a specialized IFI, IFAD is increasingly cooperating with the GM as an “outsourced” service provider for IFAD’s operations in general and in the context of its new Strategic Framework in particular. 

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Future cooperation between GM and IFAD

Through IFAD's Strategic Framework

The Strategic Framework for 2007-2010 guides IFAD’s operations and defines how it  will contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during this period.  It charts new ways of working in response to the new international architecture for development and the need to increase both the volume and effectiveness of investments.

The Strategic Framework clearly presents an opportunity for enhanced cooperation with the GM, due to the strong convergence with the GM’s approach, including:

  • Country-driven initiative and ownership: working through developing country governments, following their lead to design activities which respond to the needs, priorities and constraints identified by rural communities.
  • Knowledge management: transforming experience into knowledge by up-scaling of lessons learned, feeding it into national systems and sharing it globally, with a view to strengthening the development policies and investments of partner governments and the international development community.
  • Partnership: full commitment to working with partners in the United Nations system and other international financial institutions to deliver as one.
  • Policy dialogue: multilateral orientation provides a global platform for discussing rural policy issues and increasing awareness of the importance of agriculture and rural development to meeting the MDGs.
  • Sustainability: commitment to development which is compatible with sustainable natural resource management with a view to improving livelihoods.

Through IFAD’s increased field presence

The new modalities for resource allocation and the growing importance of developing countries’ domestic budgeting processes have brought home a clear need for closer, more continuous involvement of international organizations at the country level, to ensure catalytic action related to policy dialogue and partnership-building, with a view to increased development effectiveness.

In December 2003, the Executive Board authorized implementation of a three-year Field Presence Pilot Programme (FPPP) to enable IFAD to play a more catalytic role in-country, thereby strengthening the impact of its activities on the socio-economic situations of its target group and building local capacities.

Over and beyond improved quality of project implementation, field presence has helped to:

  • forge closer relations with government institutions and cooperating institutions;
  • foster policy dialogue with governmental authorities on specific thematic issues;
  • more closely align programmes with national mechanisms and objectives;
  • improve coordination with civil society;
  • enhance cooperation and coordination with donors;
  • identify additional opportunities for co-financing; and
  • increase the flow of knowledge between stakeholders.

These operational lessons learnt by IFAD to date confirm the solid foundations upon which the GM’s Consolidated Strategy and Enhanced Approach (2006) is built. 

Moreover, the convergence between IFAD’s pilot field presence countries and the country Parties to the UNCCD which the GM is considering for longer-term intervention augurs well for potential cooperation between the GM and IFAD at country level.

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The GM's strategy

The GM's Strategy, outlined in its report to the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP.7) and endorsed by the Parties in Nairobi (October 2005), is the GM’s response to the new international setting. This "Consolidated Strategy and Enhanced Approach" (CSEA) is so-called since it is firmly rooted in the GM’s original mandate and experience, while increasingly concentrating on the provision of specialized financial advisory services to country Parties, in close cooperation with IFIs, the European Commission and bilateral donor agencies.

The principles of GM engagement

The following principles underpin the GM’s work:

  • Supporting domestic approaches to SLM financing
    The GM is committed to strengthening UNCCD National Action Programmes (NAPs) and other relevant policy processes and to supporting their integration into overall development programming, to increase the specific contribution that the UNCCD can make to poverty reduction efforts, rural development and natural resource management and thereby attract funding for their implementation.  To this end, the GM is specializing in developing and implementing integrated financing strategies (IFSs), which design the process leading to an investment flow by tapping into domestic budget processes, international aid delivery and overarching development agendas such as Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs) as well as innovative sources and mechansims.  The GM also seeks how best to engage stakeholders in mobilizing domestic and international resources for a given country Party.
  • Partnership-building
    Partnership is one of the most important features of the Convention and the GM, as a special service provider in finance for UNCCD implementation, acts as a hub for a dynamic network of strategic and financing partners, committed to focusing their energies, resources and knowledge to deliver the goals of development as one, in the spirit of the Paris Declaration’s call for harmonization and alignment.  The GM forges or joins partnerships with international and regional institutions, the scientific community and individual experts, with the intention of strengthening its corporate service provision on strategic issues, concepts and approaches, by drawing on partners’ technical and strategic expertise and processes, thereby mobilizing resources for a specific objective  The GM welcomes IFAD’s increasing field presence as an opportunity to involve the Fund in country and regional-level UNCCD partnerships.
  • Mainstreaming
    The COP has identified the mainstreaming approach - long advocated and practised by the GM - as the main instrument for enhancing the integration of the UNCCD into the development agendas at country level.  Convinced that successful mobilization of financial resources involves the mobilization of instrumental resources (strategic frameworks and policy instruments), human resources (stakeholders, organizations and institutions), and knowledge and information resources (awareness-raising and capacity-building), the GM promotes this key instrument for UNCCD implementation, affirming its specific role in this context.
  • Substantiating policy processes
    The GM believes more weight should be given to a conducive policy environment, legislative reform, governance issues and institution building, in terms of UNCCD implementation.  It therefore engages in policy processes directly linked to Convention implementation - such as rural development, agriculture and forestry processes – with the aim of positioning the UNCCD in the domestic development context and support country Parties in making the UNCCD a more effective tool.  At the (sub)regional level, the GM fosters dialogue and promotes knowledge exchange and learning through expert consultations and special initiatives, with the aim of incorporating countries’ experiences into the broader development debate.

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GM's operations

The backbones of the GM’s operations are its strategic programmes, its special initiatives and its communications and outreach activities.

Strategic programmes

GM is strengthening its corporate capacity to mobilize resources through a range of strategic programmes, designed to enhance the impact of the GM’s country and sub-regional level operations, by increasing interaction with sectors that have not traditionally been part of the UNCCD agenda, but which have significant potential for increasing investment flows for SLM.

At the core of the GM’s Strategic work is the Economics and Financing Instruments strategic programme, which elaborates and promotes the concept of integrated financing strategies (IFSs), with the ultimate aim of securing sustainable, timely and predictable investments for UNCCD implementation, by broadening the scope of UNCCD implementation.

An IFS is a comprehensive, co-ordinated strategy, closely linked with the NAP or other relevant process and anchored in the national institutional setting, which brings into play a mix of financial sources, instruments and mechanisms, through which to secure sustainable, timely and predictable investments for UNCCD implementation.  The financial instruments involved can directly generate or influence financial flows by attracting them or re-directing them, for instance, through fiscal or policy incentives or disincentives.  An IFS leverages both external and domestic public and private financial sources and may also involve financial mechanisms such as Global Environment Facility (GEF); Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) delivery mechanisms; national and international funds and implementation frameworks; and compensation for ecosystem services (CES) schemes, including climate change adaptation.

The other strategic programmes have been carefully selected on the basis of their potential to create favourable frame conditions for investment and for the mobilization of domestic and international resources from public and private sources, and include:

  • Policy Analysis & Financial Transactions
  • Compensation for Ecosystems Services
  • Market Access & Trade
  • Civil Society Partnerships
  • Private Sector Partnerships
  • Forestry
Special initiatives

The GM is also developing special initiatives which tie into its regional programmes and are supported by its strategic programmes.  These can be considered GM products, packaged to attract the interest of country Parties, financing institutions, bilateral donor agencies and other prospective donors in channelling resources into SLM.  The special initiatives include:

  • CACILM - the Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management: a Global Environment Facility (GEF) ten year, multi-country, multi-donor initiative led by the ADB, and developed with the GM’s co-financing and technical support.  CACILM has been designed to enhance collaboration between the countries and external partners for pursuing a comprehensive approach to channelling substantial finances for SLM.
  • PPP - the Public-Private Partnership Initiative: The Conference of the Parties requested the GM to support resource mobilization through new sources of financing. Recognizing the potential of public-private partnerships in providing resources for UNCCD implementation, the GM is piloting this initiative in Kenya and South Africa with a view to engaging the corporate sector in NAP implementation.
  • SolArid - South-to-south Cooperation: the GM promotes South-to-south cooperation through an inter-regional approach. The GM’s South-to-south cooperation programme, SolArid, brings together the countries of the Sahel and the Sahara.

Communications and outreach

The GM places great importance on communications and outreach in order to maximise the impact of its operations with limited resources.  The Communications Group, created in 2006, has the mission of utilizing the most effective channels to raise awareness, share information, stimulate dialogue, and generate knowledge, with the aim of empowering the GM’s constituencies in UNCCD implementation.

Resource mobilization is a key element in this empowerment process and communications activities are therefore part and parcel of the GM’s resource mobilization strategy.  However, for the GM to be an effective mobilizer of resources, the GM’s communications messages, tools and services must be crafted around and respond to its constituencies needs, sparking their curiosity, enticing their involvement and persuading them to contribute to and/or financially support the GM’s work.

The GM is therefore attentive to ensuring that the type of content published, the specific communications medium used and the product designed, match its target audiences’ explicit requirements.  Tools and channels being developed include:

  • web-based communication
  • decentralized networks such as e-forums and communities of practice
  • dynamic partnerships with authoritative sources of information
  • traditional publications, training materials and other communications products

The Communications Group hopes that with time, its communications tools and messages will become the “engine oil” that substantiates and strengthens the mechanism’s Country Engagement Strategy and its special initiatives, contributing to its success as a key instrument for resource mobilization for SLM.