Observatories on Sustainable Land Management (SLM) Investments
The resource mobilization process requires a vast amount of knowledge to be systematically generated, managed and exploited. This knowledge encompasses:
• the extent and impact of land degradation, desertification and drought expressed in macro-economic terms, to support evidence-based decision making;
• knowledge of the type, scale and results of measures taken and investments made to tackle land degradation, desertification and drought, in order to assess actual advancement;
• knowledge of investment gaps, financial needs and resource constraints and barriers that hamper progress in achieving agreed-upon objectives and action programmes;
• knowledge of programmatic priorities, suitable technologies and concrete project proposals that can be put in place to address specific issues within a comprehensive and forward-looking response package;
• knowledge of existing and potential funding sources, instruments and mechanisms that could be taken into account in developing an integrated financing strategy to operationalize national and (sub)regional action programmes;
• knowledge of relevant planning and budget cycles, entry points for budget negotiation, eligibility criteria, application modalities, sectoral and thematic priorities, as well as terms and conditions of time-bound calls for proposals or for expressions of interest;
• knowledge of appraisal modalities, expected results, intended outcomes, as well as targets, benchmarks, performance and impact indicators that must be taken into account in progress reporting;
• knowledge of broader environmental, socio-economic and political aspects that help the issues at stake to be understood and contextualized, and to identify better and more effective options to the UNCCD financing equation.
The Observatories on SLM Investments provide a structured response to these knowledge requirements. By supporting the establishment of national and subregional Observatories, the GM equips countries with a comprehensive range of information services and knowledge management capacities. Moreover, national and international Observatories are linked to form a global network.
The Observatory is a combination of information resources, personnel, networks and data warehousing infrastructure (i.e. “hardware”) and knowledge management techniques, resource tracking systems, analytical methodologies, resource mobilization know-how, and financial expertise (i.e. “software”) specifically developed to serve a long-term SLM vision.