CONFERENCE OF PARTIES TO DESERTIFICATION CONVENTION TO MEET AT ROME, 29 SEPTEMBER - 10 OCTOBER

Press Release
ENV/DEV/447

CONFERENCE OF PARTIES TO DESERTIFICATION CONVENTION TO MEET AT ROME, 29 SEPTEMBER - 10 OCTOBER

ROME, 24 September (Interim Secretariat, Convention to Combat Desertification) -- Around 1,000 participants, including heads of State, ministers, mayors, diplomats and community leaders, will meet in Rome from 29 September to 10 October to start putting the Convention to Combat Desertification into action.

Recognizing that land degradation is a leading cause of poverty in the world's most arid countries, the international community adopted the Convention in order to restore damaged lands, improve food security, and encourage the transition to sustainable agriculture and land management.

"Combating desertification will promote political stability, strengthen civil society, and eliminate conflict and violence in many of the world's most vulnerable countries", says Arba Diallo, the Convention's Executive Secretary. "The social and economic costs of taking preventative action now will be much lower than the alternative of more refugee crises, disaster relief programmes and economic assistance in the years to come."

The Convention seeks to break with past practices by overhauling the international aid process. More supportive international partnerships with donors are to be accompanied by reforms in affected countries. These combined efforts must create an enabling environment that empowers local communities to help themselves through bottom-up programmes.

The issue of how to finance projects to reverse land degradation tops the agenda of the Rome conference. Governments must define the specific functions and procedures of a global mechanism for mobilizing financial resources. With broad agreement on most of the Convention's underlying principles and philosophy, the issue of how much money will be transferred from donors to affected countries and how it should be spent will loom large at the meeting.

Meanwhile, reflecting the prominent role that local communities and civil society have under the Convention, some 40 mayors from around the world will participate in the International Forum of Mayors on Desertification,

Rural Poverty, Migration, and Urbanization, to be held in Rome's City Hall from 3 to 4 October. A non-governmental organization summit, a special exhibit of "Comics to Combat Desertification", and other events will also take place in the margins of the main meeting.

The social and economic costs of dry-land degradation are immense. Over 250 million people are directly affected, and some 1 billion are at risk. Although there is little detailed data on economic losses resulting from desertification, the United Nations estimates that the annual income lost in areas immediately affected by desertification amounts to approximately $42 billion. The indirect economic and social costs suffered outside the affected areas, including the influx of environmental refugees and losses to national food production, are also significant.

The problem of food security is of particular importance. A nutritionally adequate diet for the world's growing population implies a tripling of food production over the next 50 years. This will be a challenge even under the most favourable circumstances. If desertification is not stopped and reversed, food yields in many affected areas will decline.

While desertification is often associated with regions such as the Sahel, Africa is not the only continent that is afflicted. The densely populated Asia and Pacific region also contains some 1.4 million hectares of degraded dry lands, while parts of Italy, Spain and other European countries also suffer. The continent that has the highest proportion of its dry land severely or moderately desertified -- 74 per cent compared to Africa's 73 per cent -- is North America.

Desertification is caused by human activities and climate variability. In the past, dry lands recovered easily following long droughts; but overgrazing and other modern conditions now often undermine biological and economic productivity quickly unless land is sustainably managed. With a new El Niño event predicted for late 1997 in the southern Pacific, forecasters are concerned that global weather patterns may lead to renewed drought conditions in various parts of the globe.

In addition to taking decisions on the global mechanism for mobilizing financial resources, the Rome conference will assess actions taken to enhance implementation of the Convention under various interim measures, in particular a 1994 resolution on urgent action for Africa. Other issues are the procedures for communicating information and reviewing implementation, the rules of procedure, the scale of financial contributions, the programme and budget, and the location of the Convention's permanent secretariat. The options for that location are Bonn, Germany; Montreal, Canada; and Murcia, Spain.

- 3 - Press Release ENV/DEV/447 25 September 1997

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was inspired by an Agenda 21 decision and represents one of the most significant concrete achievements of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Negotiations concluded with the treaty's adoption on 17 June 1994. It entered into force on 26 December 1996 and now has over 100 parties. The current meeting, known officially as the First Session of the Conference of the Parties, is being hosted by the Government of Italy at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The high-level segment for heads of State or government and ministers will take place from 7 to 10 October.

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