Policy Requirements to Combat Desertification

Combating desertification remains one of the major challenges of the 21st century, and nowhere more so than in Africa where the vulnerability of populations and the ecosystems of the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid zones are particularly apparent. Desertification, or land degradation, in these zones is a complex multidimensional phenomenon with diverse political, social and economic implications that are in perpetual mutation. The controversy that has long surrounded the definition of the phenomenon and divided politicians and scientists indicates its complexity, as well as the difficulty of grasping its multiple facets, which are inextricably linked and are multi-thematic and multidisciplinary. Furthermore, desertification is at the heart of development concerns of the majority of the poorest nations.

Insidious and treacherous, desertification does not even make the news headlines, unlike a tsunami, a civil war or even immigration. Yet there are 480 million people worldwide who are affected and one billion who are threatened; 3,600 million hectares, or 70% of the world's arid lands, are degraded, and 10 million hectares of arable land deteriorates every year. The vicious cycle of desertification and poverty results in causes becoming effects, as highlighted in Article 1 of the Convention to Combat Desertification: the combined effect of anthropogenic activities and climatic conditions that causes the degradation of land and vegetation cover, leading to clearing and overgrazing with the result, for example, of sand encroachment and erosion seriously compromising development efforts and initiating, in extreme situations, populations to migrate.