ENG - UN CC:Learn

UNDP’s response to this situation has been to advocate for greater development emphasis on people living in drylands. In addition
to the GEF Land Degradation programme resources, UNDP’s Integrated Drylands Development Programme, advocates for more
attention to areas where current productive capacity is low and poverty levels are high. Because of its political independence, UNDP
is particularly well-suited to support land tenure reform efforts, which raise politically sensitive issues of national sovereignty amidst
the need for transparent, participatory reform processes. UNDP manages a portfolio of ongoing drylands projects budgeted at
some US$243 million including resources made available by GEF.
UNDP SERVICE LINE: CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE USE OF BIODIVERSITY
The poor, especially in rural areas, depend on biodiversity—the
full variety of life forms on Earth—for food, shelter, medicines
and livelihoods. Biodiversity also provides the critical ecosystem
services, including air and water purification, soil formation
and conservation, disease control, and climatic regulation
services, that underlie all human well-being and economic
prosperity. Well over a third of the global economy is based on
biological products and processes. Ecosystem services are a
mainstay of poor communities and a major source of rural
income and livelihoods.
Moreover, biodiversity provides resilience and options for
change, especially important in these times of fast-paced economic
and technological transformation. Such resilience is
even more crucial for the poor than for the rich. Far from being
a luxury the poor can do without, biodiversity is a vital insurance
policy for the poor and often their welfare system of last resort.
19