The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources of Guatemala has created a Unit to Combat Desertification and Drought, with the objective of preserving and enhancing Guatemala’s natural heritage.
The Unit will promote and facilitate coordination between the various institutions and projects that address environmental and natural resource management issues, to achieve implementation of the UNCCD in Guatemala, in accordance with Ministerial Decree 263-2007, published in the Central American Journal.
It will support the implementation of research and development projects, transfer technology designed to combat desertification and drought, identify innovative mechanisms that create incentives for investment in sustainable land management and promote and implement capacity-building programmes.
The Unit is a fundamental step in the Government of Guatemala’s institution-building process to systematize all actions designed to mitigate the effects of drought that recurrently affect a significant portion of the country – especially the so-called ‘dry corridor’ that spans six departments.
The GM has provided technical assistance to help set up the Unit and is supporting various initiatives of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources that are being undertaken within the framework of the National Action Programme (PROANDYS) that sustain the principles of the UNCCD and a series of bilateral coordination efforts with other cooperation agencies, governmental institutions and civil society organizations that are adopting and disseminating the principles and objectives of PROANDYS, with the objective of reducing the effects of drought, poverty and marginality in the country’s most affected departments.
In the same vein, the GM is supporting Guatemala in the development of its Integrated Financial Strategy that will facilitate the mobilization of financial resources from government, the private sector, cooperation agencies, civil society organizations and innovative financial mechanisms, to support the effective implementation of the National Action Programme in particular, and the UNCCD in general.
The Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources has agreed to assign the minimum resources needed for the Unit to function from its general budget. However, it is hoped that in the first instance, the Unit will be able to count on financial support from international cooperation agencies for its operations.
For more information on the Unit and how to support it:
Mr Alan González Figueroa, Regional Advisor for Mesoamerica
a.figueroa (at) global-mechanism.org
a.figueroa (at) global-mechanism.org
