Farms surrounded by arid lands in Kangirega Village, Turkana County, Kenya (March 2022). Credit: UNCCD

By Ibrahim Thiaw
BONN, Germany, Jun 1 2022 (IPS)

Land is our lifeline on this planet. Yet ‘business as usual’ in how we manage land resources puts our own future on planet Earth in jeopardy, with half of humanity already facing the impacts of land degradation.

As we mark the 50th World Environment Day, let us accelerate efforts to meet global pledges to restore by 2030 one billion degraded hectares — an area the size of the USA or China — to stem the loss of life and livelihoods and secure future prosperity for all.

We need to move fast—and together—to realize these commitments through tangible action and effective investments. In doing so, we may find that the answer to some of humanity’s biggest challenges is right beneath our feet.

It was against the backdrop of multiple global challenges, including the worst-in-40-years drought in Eastern Africa, as well as food and economic crises fuelled by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts, that 196 nations came together in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire from 9-20 May for the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

At the 9 May Summit convened by Côte d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara, leaders adopted the Abidjan Call, which reinforces the commitment towards achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030. Simply put, this means ending land loss by avoiding, reducing and reversing the damage we do to our forests, peatlands, savannahs and other ecosystems.

The leaders’ call to action comes in response to a stark warning by the UNCCD’s flagship Global Land Outlook report that up to 40% of all ice-free land is already degraded, with dire consequences for climate, biodiversity and livelihoods. Business as usual will, by 2050, result in degradation of 16 million square kilometres (almost the size of South America), with 69 gigatonnes of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.

But it is not all doom and gloom. The report underscores that investing in large-scale land restoration is a powerful, cost-effective and viable pathway to restore our communities, economies, health and much more.

Restoring one billion hectares of degraded lands will add 50% to the global GDP, help tackle climate and biodiversity crises, boost water and food security, and chart a new path to post-pandemic recovery. It would also attenuate seemingly unrelated crises such as forced migration: land restoration would help reduce the estimated 700 million people at risk of being displaced by drought by 2030.

At the conclusion of two-week negotiations in Abidjan, countries sent a united call about the importance of healthy and productive land for securing future prosperity for all and for boosting drought resilience the world longs for.

Exacerbated by land degradation and climate change, droughts are increasing in frequency and severity, and may affect an estimated three-quarters of the world’s population by 2050, according to the Drought in Numbers 2022 report from UNCCD. Recognizing drought as a serious threat to humanity, UNCCD parties agreed to step up collaboration to explore new policies at the regional and global levels, working together towards COP16 in Saudi Arabia.

With 38 decisions taken at COP15, the Convention will be able to anticipate and act on the changes to the land that may unfold in the years to come. As one concrete example of COP15 decisions, a global database will be developed to help countries to map the exact location of the one billion hectares earmarked for restoration, and to track progress of their restoration in a systematic manner.

This will help the international community to check action against the targets at the national level. More importantly, it will help countries to make well-informed decisions.

Future-proofing land management will also help boost agricultural productivity, avoid supply chain disruptions, and withstand future environmental shocks. The US$ 2.5 billion Abidjan Legacy Programme launched by President Ouattara in Abidjan is one example of investing in long-term environmental sustainability across major value chains in Côte d’Ivoire while protecting and restoring forests and lands and improving communities’ resilience to climate change.

At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, which came hot on the heels of UNCCD COP15, I argued for greater involvement of food and land-use sectors, which represent about 12% of global GDP and up to 40% of employment, in land restoration and drought resilience efforts.

Stronger governance for better land management

The Abidjan COP15 was transformational in many ways, not least of them a growing recognition of the essential role of good governance for effective land restoration and drought resilience.

COP15 agreed on policy actions to enable land restoration through stronger tenure rights, gender equality, land use planning and youth engagement to draw private sector investment in conservation, farming and land use practices that improve the health of the land.

Take gender equality, for instance. Although women make up nearly half of all agricultural workforce, they only hold 18% of the associated land titles in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, women are twice more affected by desertification, land degradation and drought compared to men, according to a new UNCCD study released at the Gender Caucus at COP15.

Yet, when empowered, women can be at the forefront of global land restoration efforts, as examples from around the world—from Nepal to Jordan to Paraguay—demonstrate. Decisions taken at COP15 seek to promote women’s involvement in land management and restoration efforts by strengthening their rights and facilitating access to finance.

UNCCD is a trailblazer among international environmental treaties in acknowledging that we cannot reverse land degradation without secure land tenure. People with secure tenure know that when they invest in the land, they will reap the benefits; they are more motivated to protect the long-term health and productivity of their land.

Secure tenure is not only important to small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples and local communities—it is just as important to those making large-scale investments in land degradation neutrality and restoration. Otherwise, it can become a source of tension or conflict over natural resources. At COP15, countries agreed to build on existing guidance on land tenure to ensure the inclusive and meaningful participation of all actors in efforts to combat land degradation.

Youth makes up most of the population in countries affected by desertification, land degradation and drought. And in many of these countries, land-based sectors are the mainstay of the economies. That’s why the Youth Forum at COP15 focused on supporting land-based youth entrepreneurship, securing decent land-based jobs, and strengthening youth participation in the Convention. Beyond better land stewardship, it could go also go a long way towards reducing social unrest resulting from high youth unemployment rates.

Addressing climate, biodiversity and land crises together

Climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation pose existential threats to nature and humanity. The linkages between them have been clearly established. Our actions to address them must also be interlinked and coordinated as there is no pathway to achieving our goals on climate, biodiversity or land without tackling them together.

UNCCD is one of the three global treaties that emerged from the Rio Earth Summit 30 years ago, along with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

As the international community gathers in Stockholm this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, we must make this decade one of urgent action, restoration and transformation, uniting the land, biodiversity and climate agendas for the survival of people and the planet.

This World Environment Day with its theme “Only One Earth”, let us have the same sense of urgency and solidarity that guided our predecessors at the historical Stockholm 1972 conference. Fifty years on, this truth still holds — this planet is our only home.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Ibrahim Thiaw
BONN, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

We have known for over 25 years that poor land use and management are major drivers of climate change, but have never mustered the political will to act.

With the release of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on climate change and land, which makes the consequences of inaction crystal clear, we have no excuse for further delay.

We cannot head off the worst ravages of climate change without action on land degradation. The knowledge and technologies to manage our lands sustainably already exist.

All we need is the will to use them to draw down carbon from the atmosphere, protect vital ecosystems and meet the challenge of feeding a growing global population. We must harness the enormous positive potential of our lands and make them part of the climate solution.

With the help of our scientists, I will ensure the issues in this report that are within the scope of the Convention are presented to ministers for strong and decisive action when they meet at the world’s largest intergovernmental forum where decisions on land use and management are made, the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD, taking place in New Delhi, India, in three weeks’ time.

The IPCC report is one of four major assessments released over the last two years that show the wide-ranging impacts of land degradation. It is not just the climate that suffers when land quality declines.

Land degradation jeopardizes our ability to feed the world, threatens the survival of over a million species, destroys ecosystems and drives resource-related conflicts that demand costly international interventions.

These problems are no longer local problems. The report underlines that the increasingly global flows of consumption and production means that what we eat in one country can impact land in another. In the wake of land degradation and drought, communities are breaking down due to the swift and devastating loss of life and livelihoods.

Faced with these life-changing consequences, the UNCCD has developed a robust policy framework that can enable countries to avoid further land degradation and recover land that has become virtually unusable.

Change is happening, but not fast enough. In the last four years, 122 of the 169 countries affected by desertification, land degradation or drought have embarked on setting national targets to halt future degradation and rehabilitate degrading land to ensure the amount of healthy and productive land available in 2015 does not decline by 2030 and beyond.

Last year, these countries submitted baseline date to verify this achievement. And in just three years, close to 70 countries have set up national drought management plans to reduce community and ecosystem vulnerability to droughts, which the IPCC says will become stronger, more frequent and more widespread.

This shows that commitment to reversing land degradation is growing, even though much work remains. More than two billion hectares of land are degraded. Initiatives to restore land on a national or landscape level are not only vital in reversing the process.

They are critical for helping the global community mitigate and adapt to climate change in the short term, using soil and vegetations through methods that do not harm the Earth.

When the ministers meet in September (at the UN in New York), I expect the IPCC report to have a strong influence not only on the policy decisions they will debate, but the will to take them home for appropriate action.

Science can help politicians develop informed policies that will support ordinary people to prepare, act and create more positive pathways to the future.

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Tanzanian ICT entrepreneur, Rose Funja, shows off one of the drones she uses as a key tool in her data mapping business. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Ibrahim Thiaw
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 7 2019 (IPS)

Science and technology offer exciting pathways for rural women to tackle the challenges they face daily. Innovative solutions for rural women can, for example, reduce their workload, raise food production and increase their participation in the paid labour market. But even the very best innovative, gender-appropriate technology makes no sense without access to other critical resources, especially secure land rights, which women in rural areas need to flourish.

Land degradation and drought affect, at least, 169 countries. The poorest rural communities experience the severest impacts. For instance, women in areas affected by desertification, easily spend four times longer each day collecting water, fuelwood and fodder. Moreover, these impacts have very different effects on men and women. In the parts of Eritrea impacted most by desertification, for example, the working hours for women exceed those of men by up to 30 hours per week.

Clearly, poor rural women would benefit the most from new ways of working on the land. Therefore, technology and innovation must benefit women and men equally for it to work well for society. Even more so at a time when technology is becoming critical to manage the growing threats of desertification, land degradation and drought. In Turkey, for instance, farmers can get information on when to plant in real time, using an application installed on a mobile phone.¹

However, in most part of the world, the adoption rates of technology are especially low among rural women, possibly because very often technologies are not developed with rural women land users in mind.² For example, a wheelbarrow can reduce the time spent on water transport by 60 percent. But its weight and bulk makes it physically difficult for most African women to use.³

The demand for technology design that meets rural women’s specific needs is great. But developing appropriate technology is not enough, if the pre-requisites for technology uptake, in particular access to land, credit and education, are not in place.⁴ Today, a web of laws and customs in half the countries on the planet⁵ undermine women’s ability to own, manage, and inherit the land they farm.

In nearly many developing countries, laws do not guarantee the same inheritance rights for women and men.⁶ In many more countries, with gender equitable laws, local customs and practices that leave widows landless are tolerated. For instance, a 2011 study carried out in Zambia shows that when a male head of household dies, the widow only gets, on average, one-third of the area she farmed before. The impact of such changes on the world’s roughly 258 million widows and the 584 million children who depend on them is significant.⁸ It leaves us all worse off.

Globally, women own less land and have less secure rights over land than men.⁹ Secure access to land increases women’s economic security, but it has far greater benefits for society more generally. Women who own or inherit land also control the decisions that impact their land, such as the uptake of new technology.

A study in Rwanda shows that recipients of land certificates are twice as likely to increase their investment in soil conservation relative to others. And, if women got formal land rights, they were more likely to engage in soil conservation.¹⁰ Initiatives that benefit rural women do not stop at the household or local levels. At scale, such investments have a huge global impact.

If women all over the world had the same access as men to resources for agricultural production, they could increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30 percent. This could raise the total agricultural output in developing countries substantially at national scales, and reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12 to 17 percent.¹¹

If we want to tackle the underlying causes of gender inequality, to build smart and innovate for change, then technology is good. Innovative, gender appropriate technology is better. But these will have little impact if the pre-requisites for its uptake by women, in particular access to land, credit and education, are non-existent.
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¹ Reuters, 2015, article by Manipadma Jena. Turkey’s plan to help farmers adapt to climate change? Ask a tablet. https://www.reuters.com/article/turkey-climatechange-technology/turkeys-plan-to-help-farmers-adapt-to-climate-change-ask-a-tablet-idUSL8N12P08R20151026
² Theis, Sophie et al. (2018): What happens after technology adoption? Gendered aspects of small-scale irrigation technologies in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania. Agricultural and Human Values, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-018-9862-8
³ Ashby, Jacqueline et al ( n.d.) Investing in Women as Drivers of Agricultural Growth, p.3, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTARD/Resources/webexecutivesummaryARD_GiA_InvstInWomen_8Pg_web.pdf
⁴ FAO/IFPRI (2014): Gender specific approaches, rural institutions, and technological innovations, p. 13 et seq, p. 41.
⁵ Huyer, Sophia, 2016: Closing the Gender Gap in Agriculture, Gender, Technology and Development 20(2) 105–116, p. 108.
⁶ Huyer, Sophia, 2016: Closing the Gender Gap in Agriculture, Gender, Technology and Development 20(2) 105–116, p. 108.
⁷ Chapoto, Antony et al. (2011): Widows’ Land Security in the Era of HIV/AIDS: Panel Survey Evidence from Zambia,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 59, no. 3 511-547, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/658346
⁸ Coughenour Betancourt Amy (2018): The Green Revolution reboot: Women’s land rights, https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-the-green-revolution-reboot-women-s-land-rights-93003
⁹ UN WOMEN, Facts & Figures, http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/commission-on-the-status-of-women-2012/facts-and-figures.
¹⁰ Ali, D.A. et al (2011): Environmental and Gender Impacts of Land Tenure Regularization in Africa: Pilot Evidence from Rwanda. 28 pp. Sanjak, Jolyne (2018): Women’s Land Rights Can Help Grow Food Security, https://www.landesa.org/womens-land-rights-can-help-grow-food-security-blog/.
¹¹ FAO (2011): Closing the gender gap in agriculture, http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/52011/icode/.

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