UNITED Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Executive Secretary, Monique Barbut, has come against the notion that funding for developing countries to address degradation is out of reach.

In fact, during a press conference on Monday, January 28, she explained that funding has always been available to countries which can present transformative projects with long-lasting impacts on communities.

At the hosting of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Guyana yesterday, Barbut spoke to media on the topic.

She was part of the panel which included Minister of Agriculture of Grenada, Yolande Bain-Horsford, and Minister of State of Guyana, Joseph Harmon.

Discrediting the thinking that funding to UNCCD member countries is inaccessible, she stated: “We are saying to the countries. If you want to go into a major exercise, we will finance for you the pre-feasibilities of those projects. For that, also, there is no discussion; we have the funding for the countries which are serious about going for those types of projects.”

Those types of projects were what she referred to as “transformative projects” and had been taken on by countries such as China and India to the tune of $500M and more.
“Nobody can say that the funding is not available. None of those transformative projects are yet to a stage that we are going for the funding outside,” Barbut said.

“I have been, prior to [my present occupation] the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Environmental Facility, which is the largest funding mechanism of the world, and I’m going to tell you something which might be surprising to you. But, the lack of funding is never a problem; the problem is to get the right projects. If you have a good project, I can tell you that the funding is always available.”

Barbut explained that what was important was for countries to be assisted with identifying and building projects which would help them acquire funding at a later stage.
Providing an example, she noted that Burkina Faso in Africa had accessed funding for the transformation of 3,000 out of its 5,000 villages towards Eco-Villages. That would, in turn, restore two million hectares of degraded land and provide jobs to almost one million persons in the Region.

“This project is going to be between $150M to $300M and I have no doubt that we will fundraise the project because it’s going to be done in a way that donors can expect to see a project,” the UNCCD Executive Secretary said, adding:
“This is where we have the biggest problem today. Many developing countries say there is no funding and I’m saying ‘no’. It’s that the projects that you’re presenting are not rightly presented to attract a donor. Our job is to help you to make that attractive enough.”
One of the first criteria countries need to know is to be sure that there is “political willingness” in their country to complete the project.

Another criterion includes the need for the projects to “go beyond survival”; meaning that they should not simply be for the survival of persons living in poor areas but should also create development and value to same in the Region.

“And so, it is also very important to know what are the products that this community or country wants to produce and what type of market,” she stated. “[If you follow this] I can tell you that all the technical aspects can be dealt with.”

Data from various UN agencies show that some two billion hectares of land is degraded globally, which amounts to some 30 per cent of the earth.
Meanwhile, 169 of the world’s countries have declared that they are affected by desertification, land degradation and/or drought.

These statistics considered and through invited comments from the media, the panelists also spoke on the issues relating to land sustainability measures in Guyana, Grenada and on the global scale.

Minister Bain-Horsford noted that Grenada recently undertook the setting up of the voluntary Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets, which it hopes to achieve by 2030.
Those targets included increased productivity and fertility of 500 hectares of crop land; the transformation of 800 hectares of abandoned crop land into agro-forestry and the implementation of soil conservation measures on 120 hectares of land, among others.
Meanwhile, Minister Harmon noted that Guyana was in the process of implementing a Sustainable Land Management Project which aimed to allocate land for specific use and reclaim land which was degraded.

Such would address mining issues Harmon explained, adding: “For permissions to be granted for large-scale mining there has to be a plan with that mining company – even before the licenses are granted – for how you will re-forest and deal with the degradation which takes place.”

He also noted the hosting of the Partnership Initiative for Sustainable Land Management (PISLM) in Guyana, which dealt with the management of land and takes on a CARICOM approach.

Those add to the recent eight wells drilled in the Rupununi region in collaboration with Brazil; the push for the ‘Green’ State Development Strategy (GSDS) and the maintenance of sea defenses to prevent the loss of land.

Assessing those along with the progress of countries over the years, Barbut said: “When you have lost a specie, you have lost a specie. Land does not work like that. Land can be restored, everywhere, in every single country. And so, it is a subject of hope, it’s not just a subject of depression like many other subjects on the environment and, clearly, the more you restore land the better a number of things become.”