Publicité
Poor nations agree on financing to stop deserts
Par
Partager cet article
Poor nations agree on financing to stop deserts
Leaders from Africa and the Caribbean agreed on Tuesday on financing for their efforts to stop the alarming loss of fertile lands that threaten to turn farmlands into deserts and cause famines.
Heads of governments from 10 nations attending a meeting of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, or UNCCD, agreed to adopt the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as its main source of funding.
The GEF, set up in 1991 to preserve biodiversity, reduce risks of climate change and clean up international waters, has $500 million available for grants over the next three years to pay for projects to arrest land degradation.
The facility funded by 34 donors, mainly industrialized nations, will provide grants, but the projects are chosen and executed by the World Bank, the UN Development Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Drought and desertification resulting from deforestation and overgrazing have reached alarming levels and threaten the food security of over 1 billion people around the world who depend on the land for a living, according to the United Nations. They are mostly the world?s poorest in 100 countries that are threatened. The worst cases are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Desertification is not the natural expansion of existing deserts but the gradual degradation of land in dry areas resulting in the thinning and loss of the topsoil due to misuse, climate change, drought and floods.
With an extra 2 billion people to feed over the next quarter century, food production will have to double on less land and less water, experts warned at the Havana conference. While millions of acres are being lost annually to severe land degradation, water scarcity is also rapidly expanding, with nearly two-thirds of the world?s population expected to be living in water-scarce or water-stressed areas by 2025, they said.
Some estimates say up to $25 billion will be needed to stop land degradation, but at least the problem is being tackled.
?A decade ago desertification was not treated as a serious issue,?? said Len Good, chairman of the GEF, which has become the single most important source for funds for land preservation in arid countries. ?We have committed an additional $250 million for the next three years, for a total of $500 million,?? Good told Reuters.
Publicité
Publicité
Les plus récents
