Sixty-first General Assembly

Second Committee

23^rd Meeting (AM)

convention’s goals should be integrated into development, poverty reduction

strategies, Second Committee told as it considers desertification

The goals of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) should be wrapped into national and regional development and poverty reduction strategies as the international community accelerated its efforts to slow the spread of deserts, an official of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) this morning as it took up the desertification aspect of sustainable development.

She said that as the Convention entered its second decade, Africa was especially susceptible to land degradation, which impacted at least 485 million people, 65 per cent of the continent’s entire population.  Global goals for poverty reduction and environmental targets, particularly in Africa, could only be reached if all the complex problems behind desertification were addressed.  IFAD offered several recommendations that could help countries slow the spread of a destructive trend affecting more than one-fifth of the world’s population in more than 100 countries.

IFAD advocated country ownership as a useful tool to enhance the Convention’s implementation, she said, adding that the mainstreaming of sustainable land management at the country level must envelope more long-term input from affected communities.  The Fund also recommended the importance of raising the understanding of the relationship between desertification and vulnerability.  It was also important to pay attention to the causes, rather than just the effects, of the spread of deserts by identifying what triggered it.  IFAD also urged the promotion of synergies between relevant national strategic frameworks and the Rio conventions.

Nigeria’s representative said his country had initiated a national framework to address desertification, in line with the designation of 2006 as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.  It entailed the promotion of reforestation as a way to help local communities generate resources for their economic well-being.  The President of Nigeria had also initiated the “Green Belt” movement to plant trees across the continent as part of the environmental agenda of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.

Noting that the third Assembly of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) had recommended a look at turning that tool into a financial mechanism for the Convention, he said that, while the GEF had boosted the resources it made available for sustainable land management, it must do much more to raise those resources to the same level as the other Rio Conventions.  It would be disappointing to see only two focal points -- climate change and biological diversity -- continue to receive 80 per cent of GEF resources.  Nigeria hoped also that the UNCCD secretariat would pay close attention to activities in Asia and Latin America as it monitored the Convention’s implementation.

The Sudan’s representative said that the signing of its Comprehensive Peace Agreement, by the seven member countries of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in January 2005, had been motivated by the conviction that peace was the first step towards combating drought and desertification.  That, in turn, would open the road to sustainable development, poverty eradication and the fight against hunger.  The most important lesson derived from IGAD’s experience was that it was not possible to combat drought and desertification in isolation from other national or regional economic,social and political challenges.

He noted that his country had been suffering from drought and desertification for more than three decades, and the rate of deforestation and desertification was estimated at almost 29 times that of forestation.  The influx of refugees from neighbouring countries and the increasing number of livestock had further exacerbated the problem, as had the spread of poverty and the weak use of environment-friendly energy sources.

Israel’s representative, noting that the General Assembly had charged each country with launching events to encourage international anti-desertification efforts during the International Year, said his country would host an  international conference next week on “Deserts and Desertification: Challenges and Opportunities”.  The four-day event would emphasize the distinction between deserts and desertification, in addition to considering technological policy and economic implications.  It would also discuss sustainable development in different dryland environments; examine the indirect drivers of desertification, such as land tenure, social aspects, gender and demographic pressure; hold field trips to sites within Israel, where communities had attempted to take advantage of desert conditions for economic benefit and consider desert-related projects.

Other speakers during this morning’s meeting were the representatives of Venezuela, Somalia, South Africa (on behalf of the Group of 77 developed countries and China), Namibia, Iran, Niger, China, Japan and Cape Verde.

Also speaking was the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), who introduced a report on poverty eradication and industrial development cooperation ahead of Friday’s discussion of that issue.

As the Committee subsequently took up the report of the Committee on Programme and Coordination, the representative of the United States pointed out that his country had disassociated itself from that document because of the continued inability of the Committee for Programme and Coordination to fulfil its mandate by reforming its working methods.

The Second Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 2 November, to consider operational activities for development of the United Nations system.

Background

As the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) met this morning to take up the desertification aspect of sustainable development, it had before it a note by the Secretary-General on Implementation of United Nations environmental conventions (document A/61/225), which contains the report of the secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa.

The report says Africa was a particular focus of the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2005.  Meanwhile, the International Year of Deserts and Desertification (2006) was observed by the highlighting -- at the Beijing Conference on Women and Desertification, held in Beijing from 29 May to 1 JUNE 2006 -- of the role of women in managing natural resources and food production as well as meeting energy and water needs for the household.  (For more details, see Press Release GA/EF/3159).

Also before the Committee was the Report of the Committee for Programme and Coordination at its forty-sixth session (document A/61/16), which notes that its organizational session was held at United Nations headquarters on 21 June 2006 and its substantive session from 14 August to 8 September 2006.  The Committee recommended that the General Assembly allocate subprogramme 1 of programme 7, Economic and Social Affairs, of the proposed strategic framework for the period 2008-2009, to the Second Committee for review and action under the agenda item entitled “Programme planning”.

According to the report, the Committee expressed support for the strengthening of the General Assembly’s role as well as that of the Economic and Social Council to advance the overall reform of the United Nations and related activities.  The view was expressed that the Council’s role should be strengthened through improved linkages between normative and operational work.  The importance of the Council’s role in coordinating the Organization’s post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding work and in cooperation with the Peacebuilding Commission, was emphasized.

The report states that emphasis was placed on the need to enhance the frequency of Economic and Social Council meetings concerning the efficiency and coordination with regard to the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, including in the context of the review of operational activities.

Also before the Committee were Proposed strategic framework for the period 2008-2009, Part two: biennial programme plan (document A/61/6 (Prog. 7) and a report from the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization on Industrial development cooperation (document A/61/305), as transmitted by the Secretary-General.

Introduction of Reports

HAMA ARBA DIALLO, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), introduced the report transmitted by the Secretary-General on Implementation of United Nations environmental conventions (document A/61/225), with contributions from the secretariats of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention to Combat Desertification and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The thrust of the report of the Convention to Combat Desertification focused on the final outcome of the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties, held in October 2005 and the celebration of the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, he said.  The conference had stressed the need for strategic guidance and targets, in order to foster the implementation of the Convention.  Parties had considered a report prepared by the Joint Inspections Unit and decided to create an ad hoc intergovernmental intersessional working group to review that report in full and develop a draft 10-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the Convention’s implementation.  The working group would also consider ways to enhance synergies between combating desertification and land degradation; climate change mitigation and adaptation; biodiversity conservation and sustainable use; and to ensure that enhanced synergies contributed to the fulfilment of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

He said 2006 was an important year for the Convention, as it marked the tenth anniversary of its entry into force and had been designated the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.  The International Year would provide a unique opportunity to raise public awareness of desertification around the world.  Experts would gather in New York in a few days’ time for a round-table discussion on “Assessing the UNCCD process and identifying challenges ahead”.  The international community, particularly the donor countries, should treat the Convention as the major instrument to address the various needs of hundreds of millions of people living in degraded lands.

Underscoring the voluntary contribution made by Venezuela to help implement the Convention in the African, Asian, South Pacific and Latin American and Caribbean regions, he said, there would be no sustainable development on the planet unless full attention was paid to the UNCCD.

Questions and Answers

The representative of Venezuela said that, given the link between desertification and food production, the secretariat of the Convention to Combat Desertification was in a prime position to promote food security.  For its part, Venezuela had spent $6 million to develop programmes and fight desertification in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and had also established a sustainable development fund.  The country looked forward to more South-South cooperation on that matter since developing countries were likely to be the most affected by desertification.  Venezuela called on the developed world to provide financial and logistical support for the strengthening of developing-country institutions to combat desertification.

The representative of Nigeria voiced appreciation for Mr. Diallo’s work, saying it was because of him that the Convention had begun to be viewed as a tool for combating poverty.  It was understood that discussions were taking place in Cape Town on turning the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) into a financial instrument of the Convention.  Where did things on that matter stand?  The Chief Executive of the GEF seemed to indicate that things were proceeding smoothly, but what did the secretariat of the Convention on Combating Desertification think?  Where did things stand regarding the “Green Belt” project?

The representative of Somalia, speaking as someone from a country that faced serious drought and desertification problems, said it was a global issue and, as such, the secretariat deserved more financial support from developed, as well as developing, countries.

Mr. DIALLO responded by saying that the secretariat saw much merit in urging developing countries, regardless of their development status, to share their experience with one another on desertification.  Three years ago, the secretariat had launched a series of discussions with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to see how date cultivation could be used to combat both desertification and poverty, and to discuss how that technique could be shared with the rest of the world.  In three days’ time, he would be in China to promote more sharing of best practices.

On the possibilities of further collaboration between the GEF and the secretariat, he said that, politically, the GEF had a clear mandate to support implementation of the Convention, but discussions were continuing as to the concrete action that would be taken.

He said the secretariat was helping to formulate “Green Belt” activities, in accordance with the proposal, submitted by the President of Nigeria and endorsed by the African Union, to identify activities that would help Africa meet land degradation problems.

SUHAYFA EBRAHIM ZIA (South Africa), speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, said desertification and land degradation continued to pose a threat to sustainable development.  In Johannesburg, four years ago, world leaders had agreed to consider the Convention as an important tool for poverty eradication, yet the international community continued to shy away from providing enough attention to desertification and land degradation.  The Group of 77 regretted that the report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization paid no attention to that major problem.  Hopefully, the international community would pay more attention to desertification as a priority issue, for because of its impact, the survival of hundreds of millions of people was at stake.

The poor management of land resources was often exacerbated by the very vulnerability of the land itself, and by the adverse impact of climate change on the biodiversity on which it depended, she said.  Results-oriented efforts must be strengthened in order to mitigate the risk of desertification and serious droughts arising from poor land management, as well as the impact of climate change and loss of biodiversity.  The Conference of the Parties had stressed the urgent need for strategic guidance and targets in order to foster implementation of the Convention and the crucial element of resource mobilization in the Convention’s success must be addressed.  The Group of 77 and China reaffirmed its support for the GEF as the financial mechanism for the Convention.

KAIRE MBUENDE ( Namibia), aligning himself with the Group of 77 and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said the Convention’s implementation was a matter life and death for Namibia.  Home to one of the oldest deserts in the world, the country faced the challenge of managing its fragile ecology, while taking measures to curb further desertification, which had drastically increased the vulnerability of its people to frequent droughts and the El Nino phenomenon.  Namibia fully supported the decision of the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties, calling for more resources to be made available to the GEF, which was doing a very good job.

Welcoming the close cooperation between the secretariats of the UNCCD and the Commission on Sustainable Development, he said he looked forward to participating in the latter’s Sixteenth and Seventeenth sessions in 2008 and 2009, respectively, when the Commission would take up the thematic clusters on agriculture, rural development, land, as well as drought and desertification.  Namibia appreciated the Commission’s good partnership with the GEF and other United Nations agencies, but was disappointed that the Facility’s fourth replenishment round had not been able to secure sufficient funding, while the number of projects had increased drastically.  The instruments adopted by the UNCCD, such as the National Action Programmes, should be used to enhance implementation of the Convention.  Namibia asked development partners to mobilize additional resources to support the Convention’s implementation in countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa.

OSITADINMA ANAEDU (Nigeria), aligning himself with the Group of 77, paid tribute to all the good work that had gone into the International Year, saying his country itself had initiated a national framework to address desertification in line with the Year.  It included the promotion of reforestation as a way to enhance the capacity of local communities to generate resources for their own economic well-being.  In addition, the President of Nigeria had initiated the “Green Belt” movement to plant trees across Africa as part of the environment agenda of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

Noting that the third GEF Assembly had recommended steps to analyse the implications of turning the Facility into a financial mechanism for the Convention, he said such an analysis was overdue and should be concluded at the forthcoming GEF Council meeting in December.  While it was true that the GEF had improved its provision of resources towards sustainable land management, much more must be done to increase the financial resources allocated to the Convention, so that it was on par with other Rio conventions.  Indeed, it would be disappointing to see only two focal points -- climate change and biological diversity -- continue to receive 80 per cent of GEF resources.  Also, in monitoring the Convention’s implementation, its Secretariat had paid close attention to the national reports from African countries.  Hopefully, the same level of attention would be accorded to the activities of Asia and Latin America.

JAVAD AMIN-MANSOUR (Iran), aligning himself with the Group of 77, said that since 2006 was the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, it was only appropriate that the Committee spend time considering the far-reaching implications of desertification on sustainable development.  Indeed, the world needed, more than ever before, to launch studies on the root causes of desertification, and to calculate the costs and benefits of combating the phenomenon, after which the international community could better mobilize human and financial resources to deal with it.

Alongside plans to combat desertification, learning to coexist with deserts should also be on the agenda, he said.  Much could be learned from indigenous people living in the desert, who used the natural resources found there an environmentally suitable manner.  For example, they used wind in their cooling systems, without polluting the air, soil or water and knew how to manage scarce water resources.  The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as the secretariats of multilateral environmental agreements, such as the Convention to Combat Desertification, should intensify their activities and donors should strengthen their funding support.

UZI MANOR ( Israel) noted that the General Assembly had charged each country with launching events to encourage international anti-desertification efforts as part of the International Year.  As a result, countries of the northern Mediterranean, together with the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, would convene an international conference in Israel next week on “deserts and desertification: challenges and opportunities”.

The conference was designed to emphasize the distinction between deserts and desertification, and to consider technological policy and economic implications, he said.  Covering a span of four days, it would discuss sustainable development in different dryland environments; examine the indirect drivers of desertification, such as land tenure, social aspects, gender and demographic pressure; hold field trips to sites within Israel where communities had attempted to take advantage of desert conditions for economic benefit; and consider desert-related projects.

BOUBACAR SEYNI ( Niger), aligning himself with the Group of 77, said his country was landlocked, and that two-thirds of its area was made up of arid lands and deserts.  It lost 100,000 hectares of woodlands each year to drought and wood cutting.  Wood was the main source of household energy and was depleting national resources as well as contributing to soil erosion.  That had led to a drop in productivity, food insecurity and poverty.

Niger was incorporating aspects of the Convention into its national programmes and setting out policies and priorities to combat desertification, he said.  But the challenges of combating desertification were beyond the country’s capacity and it needed international cooperation to take care of the problem.  Niger appealed urgently to the international community, particularly the developed countries, to provide more assistance, which would help it make progress towards attaining the Millennium Development Goals.

WANG QI ( China) said desertification affected two thirds of the world, threatening the development, and even survival, of as many as one fifth of the global population.  Indeed, combating desertification was a long-term task for many developing countries and a common responsibility of the entire international community.  As such, more financial and technological input would be needed in order to effectively implement the Convention to Combat Desertification.  Governments, working in partnership with the private-sector, non-governmental organizations and scientific research institutions, should establish practical plans of action to combat the phenomenon.

He said his country, as one of the most affected, planned to make more use of science and technology and involve the entire Chinese society in its efforts to fight desertification.  In May, China had hosted the Beijing International Conference on Women and Desertification as part of the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.  More than 50 countries had attended.

YOSHIAKI ITO ( Japan) said his country had hosted an international symposium in August to examine desertification and enlighten the Japanese public about the challenge.  The symposium had shown that more than 40 per cent of the Earth was covered by drylands -- home to nearly 2 billion people -- almost one third of the world’s population.  Up to now, though, only limited systematic surveys on the desertification of drylands had been undertaken.  The symposium had concluded that comprehensive research was urgently needed, and stressed the importance of an integrated approach that would include socio-economic policies in the area of health and sanitation and make use of the full range of climatological data and biological data.

More than 100 countries faced crises related to desertification, and the lack of water had become a real threat to human security, he said, stressing the need for the international community to redouble its efforts to halt the progress of that grave danger.

JOSE SILVA ( Cape Verde), aligning himself with the Group of 77, said the map of poverty coincided with that of desertification, meaning that unless land degradation was stopped, it would not be possible to end poverty.  Yet the resources allocated to combating desertification were not commensurate to the enormity of the problem.  As a country that had confronted drought and desertification for more than three decades, Cape Verde understood well the hardships stemming from those conditions, and was deeply concerned that desertification was not getting the attention it deserved, given its tremendous social and economic impacts.  In the coming days, the country would convene a round-table on innovative measures to combat poverty and desertification, in conjunction with NEPAD.  It would discuss, among other things, forced migration and health and conflict, which were the new effects of desertification.

Indeed, Cape Verde was not waiting until it became rich before solving its development problems, he said.  It was doing its best to solve those problems now.  However, progress was not possible without support from the rest of the world, and the GEF should take care to distribute its resources more equitably.  Hopefully, the Year would continue to bring greater awareness to the issue of desertification.  Cape Verde welcomed offers by Algeria and Israel to host international events in line with the International year and it also planned to hold national seminars and workshops on the issue.

MAGDI A. MOFADAL (The Sudan) said his country had been suffering from drought and desertification for more than three decades.  Forests used to cover 36 per cent of its total area in the 1950s, but they had been shrinking progressively.  The rate of deforestation and desertification was estimated to be almost 29 times the rate of forestation, a result mostly of the demand for fuel wood, timber or agricultural land.  The influx of refugees from neighbouring countries and the increasing number of livestock further exacerbated the problem, while the spread of poverty and weak use of environment-friendly sources of energy added to it.  In acknowledgement of those problems, Sudan had formed a Quarter Century Development Strategy (2002-2027), linking desertification with poverty, food insecurity and environmental degradation.

At the regional level, Sudan had been a founding member of the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development, created in 1986 by six East African States following recurrent droughts and famines, he said.  That body had evolved into the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), whose partners had signed Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005.  It was motivated by the conviction that peace was the first step towards combating drought and desertification.  That, in turn, would open the road to sustainable development, poverty eradication and the fight against hunger in IGAD’s largest country.  The most important lesson derived from IGAD’s experience was that drought and desertification could not be effectively dealt with in isolation from other national or regional economic, social and political dimensions.

XENIA VON LILIEN-WALDAU, International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, said one-fifth of the world’s population in more than 100 countries was impacted by desertification and land degradation.  The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment identified that situation as one of the most critical problems affecting ecosystems today.  Africa was especially susceptible to land degradation, which affected at least 485 million people, 65 per cent of the continent’s entire population.  Global goals for poverty reduction and environmental goals, particularly in Africa, could be reached only if the problem of desertification was addressed in all its cross-sectoral complexity.

She said the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), through its work with the Global Mechanism and the GEF, was committed to expanding on the momentum to deal with the challenge of desertification by helping to bring to scale the responses needed to achieve lasting results for people living with the threat or reality of the phenomenon.  As the Convention entered its second decade, efforts to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought were more urgent than ever.  As the working group developed a 10-year strategic plan and framework to enhance its implementation, IFAD offered some useful insights that should be taken into account, including the mainstreaming of UNCCD objectives into national and regional development and poverty-reduction strategies.  Promoting wider use of strategic environmental assessments could serve as an important tool to strengthen the mainstreaming of UNCCD objectives and environmental issues into policies, programmes and plans.

Country ownership was another tool that could be enhanced by mainstreaming sustainable land management at the country level, she said.  That would mean strengthening the voice and capacity of affected communities and ensuring that their engagement was sustained over the long-term.  A third IFAD recommendation was the need to increase understanding of the interrelationship between desertification and vulnerability.  It was important to pay attention to the cause, rather than the effect, by identifying the underlying drivers that triggered desertification.  IFAD also urged the promotion of synergies between relevant national strategic frameworks and the Rio conventions.  Priority should be given over the next 10 years to collaborative efforts by a broad range of institutional stakeholders.  Finally, improved monitoring would be useful.

The Committee then began its discussion on “Eradication of poverty and other development issues: Industrial development cooperation”.

Introduction of Report

KANDEH K. YUMKELLA, Director-General, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, introduced a report on Industrial development cooperation (document A/61/305), saying that the Agency, created 40 years ago, had evolved into a more effective and responsible organization for industrial development and had been carrying out a far-reaching reform programme since the 1990s.  It had cuts its staff from 1,400 to around 700 in the 1990s, while managing to raise its technicalcooperation delivery from $57 million in 1998 to $128 million in 2005.  About
$80 million of that amount came from Government donors, including developing countries.

Regarding the changing global landscape of industrial development, the key challenges to international industrial development cooperation, and UNIDO’s response to them, he said that last year developing countries had accounted for about a quarter of global manufacturing and a third of global trade in manufactured goods.  There had also been a steady growth in the South-South trade in commodities and manufactured goods, one reason why UNDIO had started a new initiative involving South-South industrial cooperation centres.  The key for sustainable wealth creation was a pro-poor growth strategy that supported the development of micro-scale, small-scale and medium-scale enterprises.  Job creation for youth was also very important, since young people between the ages of 15 and 34 accounted for only about a quarter of the working population, but made up nearly half of the world’s unemployed.

He stressed UNIDO’s role in helping developing countries to build the capacity to use new technologies, adapt and improve processes and products and move up the value chain into more sophisticated production activities and higher-value products.  South-South cooperation was very important and UNIDO was renewing its efforts to promote the exchange of knowledge, information, skills and resources among developing countries, to help spread the benefits of industrial growth.

TIINA INTELMANN ( Estonia), Committee Chairperson, thanking Mr. Yumkella for his presentation, reminded delegates that a full discussion on the eradication of poverty would take place on Friday, 10 November.

As the Committee turned its attention to programme planning, the Chairperson recalled that the General Assembly had allocated that agenda item to all the Main Committees and to the plenary.  In particular, the topic “Economic and Social Council support and coordination”, as contained in the report of the Committee for Programme and Coordination, had been brought forward to the Second Committee for appropriate review and action.  For that reason, a representative of the Office of Economic and Social Council Support and Coordination, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Sergei Kambalov, had been invited today to answer any questions delegates might have on that issue.

ALEC MALLY ( United States) asked the Bureau to clarify what would constitute “appropriate action”.

The Committee Secretary responded by explaining that “appropriate action” entailed the Committee adopting a decision to take note of the report of the Committee for Programme and Coordination.  In the event that substantive comments were to be made, they would be included in an annex to that decision.

Mr. MALLY ( United States) said his country had disassociated itself from the final report of the Committee for Programme and Coordination because of its continued inability to fulfil its mandate by reforming its working methods, which had left the United States unable to endorse the conclusions and recommendations contained in its report.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record