Streamlining country-driven SLM efforts in African island developing states

“While land degradation affects each of the sub-region’s island states in different ways and to varying degrees, sustainable land management (SLM) is a common challenge for us all”, said Évariste Nicolétis of the Global Mechanism (GM) speaking at a workshop in Seychelles, on Designing Integrated Financing Strategies (DIFS) for SLM in least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS) of the Indian Ocean.

This workshop, held in Victoria, Seychelles, from 26 to 29 May, was one of four sub-regional DIFS workshops in Africa in 2009, jointly-organized in the context of a partnership between the GM, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which aims to harmonize the three institutions’ financial and technical support to the sub-region with a view to increasing the scale, efficiency and effectiveness of investments in SLM.

The event brought together some 20 delegates from Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar and Seychelles to enhance their skills and foster knowledge exchange on designing IFSs. This approach, developed and advocated by the GM, is a process-oriented method of guiding resource mobilization efforts towards an integrated investment framework (IIF) that meets the specific, long-term needs of each developing country Party to the UNCCD.

Didier Dogley, Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Seychelles, underscored how, in the current financial crisis, it is crucial for IFSs to be operationalized with maximum effectiveness through partnership. He stressed how these strategies must be an integral part of the countries’ National Action Programmes to combat desertification (UNCCD/NAPs) and the need to promote sustainable land management in the sub-region. His words were echoed by Rebecca Loustau-Lalanne, UNDP, Seychelles, who declared that “fighting land degradation should be a global priority”.