ENVIRONMENT: Desertification – Major Poverty Factor

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RECIFE, Brazil, Nov 22 1999 (IPS) - The desertification and degradation of drylands have a direct impact on increased poverty around the world, reported Fawzi Al-Sultán, Monday, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Nearly 1.4 billion people worldwide are currently trying to survive on less than one dollar per day, and the number could reach 1.9 billion by 2015, added Al-Sultán at the Third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Desertification results from climatic changes as well as unsustainable human activities such as overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and poor irrigation practices, according to the UNCCD.

Most of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and the desertification and degradation of drylands is directly linked to increased poverty, he maintained. As desertification spreads, productive land is lost.

In addition, 65 percent of the poor, and others affected by food insecurity, live in arid or mountainous regions, Al-Sultán told the international audience at the conference, which runs through Friday in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife.

Africa offers dramatic proof of the direct ties between the two problems. Two thirds of the continent suffers the affects of desertification and the sub-Saharan region “is the only area in the world where poverty is growing,” he added.

This situation brings IFAD, whose mandate is to help the poorest among the rural poor, to play a central role in promoting the Convention’s implementation. The document has been in effect since 1996 and has been signed by 169 countries.

Last year, IFAD was chosen as administrator of the Global Mechanism, an organisation created under the Convention to obtain new resources and channel already-existing co-operative measures towards fighting desertification around the world.

Unlike climatic changes, however, the degradation of arid lands “only indirectly affects” the wealthy countries that can provide funding, Al-Sultán told IPS.

The “greenhouse effect” that raises the earth’s average temperature is an environmental priority for the industrialised world, because it is a global threat, but not desertification. Its extreme effects are found only in Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America.

Climatic changes and bio-diversity are novel issues for international co-operation, justifying new resources from the standpoint of large donors of development assistance.

The difficulty in obtaining aid to fight drought and desertification lies in the fact that they are old problems, asserted Takao Shibata, IFAD assistant for fund-raising strategies.

The wealthy countries wonder “why new resources?” arguing that funding for the issue is included in agricultural development assistance, observed Shibata.

The Global Mechanism, “which has been in existence just one year,” attempts to obtain funds to carry out the Convention’s mandate, but also to redirect or “give new priorities” to the already existing resources in order to fight desertification more effectively, he explained.

Al-Sultán expressed hope that rich countries realise the extent of the problem and that “they treat it with greater seriousness,” because “without resources we can do nothing.”

To reverse the degradation of arid lands, which affects more than 100 countries, means combatting world poverty, he argued.

Desertification is most acute in Africa, but is growing worse in Latin America, where countries such as Brazil, Haiti, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela have vast degraded areas, coinciding with extreme rural poverty, according to the IFAD.

Asia stands out as well because it holds the greatest number of people affected. Desertification can be found across extensive areas in highly populated Asian countries like China and India.