ENVIRONMENT: World Mayors Resolve To Combat Desertification

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Ramesh Jaura

ROME, Oct 4 1997 (IPS) - Mayors from cities in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas adopted an action programme Saturday that will see them join forces against desertification, a crisis already affecting nearly 100 countries worldwide.

In a ‘Declaration of Rome’ adopted after two days of intensive dicussions, some 30 mayors pledged to work together with regions, governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), researchers and the people directly affected by desertification.

The Forum of Mayors on Cities and Desertification, attended by NGOs and global agencies, was organised by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the convention to combat desertification (CCD) and the mayor of Rome, Francesco Rutelli.

The Forum was held on the occasion of the first conference of parties (COP1) to the CCD, so far ratified by 102 nations and in force since December 1996. The fortnight long COP1 ends Friday.

IFAD president Fawzi H. Al-Sultan said desertification was an key factor in accelerating migration to urban areas and particularly to the major metropolitan cities of Africa, Asia and Latin America. “Desertification is also an important push factor resp onsible for out-migration from the Third World to cities like Rome and elsewhere in Europe,” he added.

It was important that city governments and community bodies, already facing their own problems of environmental degradation, urban slums and poverty, got together to find durable solutions which help both cities and rural areas.

“We need to provide just food security and the simple amenities to the rural areas, satisfying the basic needs, and we could halt migration to the towns and cities,” added Arthur Jacobs, vice mayor of Cape Town, South Africa.

Presently, more than 230 million people live on desertified land and 850 million live in areas of declining productivity.

World-wide, some 24 billion tonnes of top soil are lost every year. The most affected regions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), are the drylands and mountainous zones in developing countries where 65 percent of the world’s po or and ‘food insecure’ populations already live.

Al-Sultan said desertification, places some 135 million people worldwide at risk of displacement unless concrete actions are taken to help them win their fight.

In the Declaration of Rome, the mayors resolved to liaise with national and local authorities to help develop an integrated response to desertification, within the framework of their own national action programmes.

These, said mayor of Tunis, Mohamed Ali Bouleymen, should actively involve participants from civil society.

The mayors pledged to “act justly” within their means to reduce the number of migrants moving to cities to escape the effects of desertification, by helping to improve out-of-town living solutions. Migrants wishing to return home could be assisted by measures — left unspecified — to help them back home, or nearby.

The mayors further resolved to raise awareness of the interlinked issues of desertification, migration and urbanisation through the media and in schools.

The Declaration of Rome will also promote the establishment of an Inter-City Desertification Network through which cities in developed countries can help cities in affected regions to develop appropriate municipal policies for sustainable development and anti-desertification projects.

Wilfredo Canavari from La Paz, Bolivia, also spoke of the need to analyse environmental conditions in cities, find answers and act accordingly. Deo Oitamong, chief administrative officer of Kampala, Uganda, added that there was need to monitor the succe sses in the implementation of the Declaration.

One of the first steps, said Baerbel Dieckmann, mayor of Bonn, Germany, could be a conference of mayors next year. A joint initiative by the city, the neighbouring city of Cologne, IFAD and the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) is under con sideration.

The gathering could be held to coincide with the opening of a permanent CCD secretariat in Bonn towards the end of next year. Bonn was chosen by the COP1 meeting Friday as the headquarters of the CCD.

Programme director of IFAD’s economic policy and resource strategy department, Bahman Mansuri, called upon governments to delegate more powers to local communities and municipal authorities to combat desertification.

IFAD presented the forum with some concrete ideas based on North-South and South-South collaboration. In a paper presented by IFAD’s Shiv Saigal, the agency offered mayors opportunities to play active roles in its ongoing projects and programmes.

The U.N. agency was founded in 1977 to combat hunger and rural poverty in low-income, food deficit regions of the world. Since then, it has spent nearly three billion dollars on poverty eradication projects in drylands.

IFAD’s special programme for sub-Saharan African Countries Affected by Drought and Desertification (SPA), established in 1986, has started 42 anti-desertification projects and programmes in 24 countries, with investments totalling 750 million dollars. (E ND/IPS/RAJ/RJ/97)