The Economics of Desertification, Land Degradation, and Drought

Box 2.4—Successes and challenges of UNCCD
The UNCCD has been ratified in 115 countries. The membership underlines the worldwide popularity of the
convention. The design of the national action plans (NAPs) revolves around a participatory bottom-up approach that
seeks to empower local communities in implementing the NAPs. In addition, the NAPs are supposed to learn from
research and to create synergies with existing programs. The NAPs also emphasize the need for accountability,
which is a reflection of the desire to show their effectiveness in combating desertification. Among the key successes
that have influenced land management in developing countries are the following:
1. The promotion of global cooperation to address land degradation and desertification
2. A greater awareness of DLDD and the need to take action to address the problem
3. Endorsement of a participatory approach and emphasis on a decentralized implementation of actions
This approach has helped developing countries that ratified the UNCCD to decentralize land management and to use
local knowledge—an aspect that plays a key role in sustainable land management. The UNCCD has set a prime
example of the community-based implementation of UN conventions (Bruyninckx 2004) and other conventions that
have attempted to follow the bottom-up approach in designing national-level initiatives. For example, the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) national adaptation program of action (NAPA) also
followed the bottom-up approach (Bruyninckx 2004).
Despite these successes, UNCCD faces the following major challenges:
1. The actual implementation of the NAPs has been minimal, largely due to the limited capacity of developing
countries.
2. There is a limited commitment from governments to commit resources to implement the activities proposed.
The NAPs have largely been donor funded, which has placed them under project mode so that they have not been
integrated into other national policies and programs. As a result, in most countries, program implementation and
planning has been tuned to respond to perceived donor expectation, rather than reflecting the country’s policies
and priorities. Only a few countries have been able to form long-term action plans and to mainstream them with
national programs and policies.
3. There has been limited mainstreaming of the NAPs in other international and national programs. For example,
the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), NAPA, and NAPs are largely implemented by one ministry in
many countries. Efforts to mainstream NAPs have been made through the national steering committees (NSCs),
but these have remained weak with limited clout over other ministries.
4. Unlike its sister conventions (NAPA and NBSAP), NAP has largely remained a developing countries
program, with little implementation in developed countries or middle-income countries.
5. The actions proposed in many NAPs fail to address the fundamental role that institutions and policies play in
land management. In cases where institutions such as strengthening of local governments are addressed, the
resource allocation has been absent or limited. In addition, the NAPs do not generally try to seek actions to
change policies and institutions.
Environmental policies at both the national and international level are increasingly becoming
common across countries. Nearly every country has an Environmental Protection Authority responsible
for regulating and enforcing environmental laws and regulations. Globally, there are 500 multilateral
environmental agreements (MEAs), which have been ratified by a majority of the countries in the world
(UNEP 2011). Realization of the important urgency of protecting the environment has also grown across
all countries, due to the increasing pollution and environmental degradation in general and the global
awareness and promotion of sustainable development (Sanwal 2004).
International policies and strategies have played a key role in fostering sustainable development
in developing countries. Multilateral and bilateral donor support to natural resource management accounts
for a large share of expenditure in land and water resources in Sub-Saharan Africa (Anonymous 2006).
For example, donors accounted for 70 percent of the total expenditure in SLM in Mali and Uganda
(World Bank 2008b, 2011). International support of natural resource management in other developing
regions is also significant. In 2008, about $6 billion was given by Overseas Development Administration
(ODA) countries to developing countries, with Asia accounting for 54 percent of the support and Sub-
Saharan Africa accounting for 21 percent of support (OECD 2010). Such support has significantly
influenced land management in developing countries.
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