The proposed conceptual framework is based on a combination of the framework proposed by Reed *et al.* (2006) and a framework that builds on this, which is currently being implemented by the DESIRE project.<fnref n="22" /> It explicitly integrates key components from each of the previous frameworks discussed above, for example, using mapping methods from LADA, WOCAT and DESERTLINKS to assess LD and remediation options. Through the DESIRE project, the proposed conceptual framework is being applied and evaluated in 16 of the most degraded parts of the world, representing a wide range of DLD processes and environmental, socio-cultural, economic and policy contexts. The following text describes how the conceptual framework in Figure 6 attempts to achieve vertical integration of data and information from local to national and international scales to generate knowledge of DLD processes, severity and extent, alongside remediation options. Numbers in brackets refer to steps in the framework shown in Figure 6.

First, it is necessary to determine the sub-national context in which M&A is being conducted. This is established through three components:

i) **Identifying system boundaries, stakeholders and their goals (step 1):** Before stakeholders can be identified, it is necessary to establish boundaries of the system to be monitored. Often, these are simply administrative boundaries (e.g. a district), but boundaries may be based on a variety of criteria, such as landscape homogeneity, water catchments, agro-ecological zones (e.g. the rangeland system) or altitude (e.g. plateaux land) (c.f. Brunckhorst et al., 2008). To avoid creating or exacerbating conflict, and to ensure adequate representation of land user perspectives, a systematic approach to the identification and inclusion of stakeholders is an important, but often neglected, first step (Reed et al., 2006; 2009). A number of methods exist for identifying, categorising and understanding relationships between stakeholders, which can be grouped under the term, "stakeholder analysis" (Reed et al., 2009). Stakeholder analysis has been used successfully to select stakeholders for inclusion in participatory DLD M&A (Dougill et al., 2006; Reed et al., 2008). It should be noted that stakeholders in the M&A of any given piece of land may come from a variety of spatial scales, and it is important not to neglect policy stakeholders who operate at coarser spatial scales but who have a direct interest and influence over local land management. Once stakeholders have been identified, they can be consulted to develop sustainability goals for the system. The remediation strategies and policies developed later in the framework can then address these wider goals in addition to the goals of preventing and/or remediating DLD. It is likely that different stakeholders will have different goals and that these may not always be compatible with each other. Therefore, a range of tools have been developed to negotiate and explore different goals. For example, participatory scenario development can be used to identify a range of sustainability goals, grouping compatible goals in different scenarios, and using backcasting techniques to identify which strategies could help achieve the goals in each scenario (Reed et al., in press). Alternatively, multi-criteria evaluation can be used to evaluate a range of goals against negotiated (and possibly weighted) criteria (Reed et al., 2006). However, it is critical to note that when multi-criteria evaluation involves the use of computerised decision aids, sufficient explanation about how the tool works must be given to participants to avoid any perception that the outcome has been subjected to some level of manipulation.

<footnote n="22">²² DESIRE: http://www.desire-project.eu/.</footnote>
ii) Describing the socio-cultural, economic, technological, political and environmental context and identifying key drivers of change (step 2): Once relevant stakeholders have been identified and selected for inclusion in the M&A process, it is possible start describing and analysing the system to be monitored/assessed. In addition to understanding the socio-cultural, economic and environmental context, policy and livelihoods analyses can provide important contextual information about the sorts of monitoring systems and remediation options that may be viable and sustainable in the long-term. A number of methods and tools exist to do this in complex socio-ecological systems at different scales.

iii) Determining current DLD status, future DLD risk and existing soil/water conservation measures (step 3): Next, it is necessary to establish a baseline of DLD status against which future progress can be monitored. Although this can be done through primary research (e.g. measuring bio-indicators of soil biodiversity), field-based methods are expensive and time-consuming over large areas. In the DESIRE project, this preliminary assessment is being done using existing land degradation indicators developed through previous research (Kosmas et al., 2003; 2006). Using methods developed in the DESERTLINKS project, desertification indicators are combined to assess desertification risk,<fnref n="23" /> and are related to desertification processes such as tillage erosion and forest fires. By identifying areas at greatest risk of future land degradation and areas where successful soil and water conservation measures have already been put in place, it may be possible to prioritise areas for remediation in the next step of the framework.

Once this context has been established, it is possible to start identifying, evaluating and selecting remediation options for policy and practice. It may be possible to develop options that can address a range of sustainability goals in addition to those focused specifically on prevention and/or remediation. There are three steps involved:

iv) Identifying, documenting and prioritising possible DLD remediation options (steps 4 and 5): The methodology used in the DESIRE project combines a collective learning and decision approach using evaluated global good practices. It moves in three parts: i) identifying DLD and locally applied solutions in a stakeholder workshop; ii) assessing local solutions with a standardised evaluation tool; and iii) jointly selecting promising strategies for trial implementation with the help of a decision-support tool (Schwilch et al., 2009) (Figure 7).

<footnote n="23">²³ Calculated using multi-factor statistical analysis on sets of indicators, for each land use type, according to the methodology to classify environmentally sensitive areas developed in the MEDALUS (Kosmas et al., 1999) and DESERTLINKS projects.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 7.** Overview of the "learning for sustainability" methodology (from Schwilch et al., 2009, in press).</figcaption></figure>

v) **Trial remediation options at field scale (step 6):** Field trials are conducted to test the effectiveness of remediation options selected through the “learning for sustainability” methodology above. These are monitored using a range of biophysical (many of which may have been already used in step 3 above) and economic (principally via Cost-Benefit Analysis) indicators, in collaboration with local land managers.

vi) **Model biophysical and economic effects of remediation options at field and regional scales (step 7):** In order to evaluate the likely effects of remediation strategies at a regional scale and make policy and extension recommendations, the DESIRE project is scaling up results from field trials (step 5) and secondary data to evaluate the regional implications of remediation strategies. This is being done using a biophysical model that builds on and extends the PESERA model (Kirkby et al., 2008). The model is being adapted to each study area to reflect indicators and DLD drivers identified in steps 2 and 3 as closely as possible. Model outputs are used to look at the biophysical effects of different remediation options that have been trialled in study areas at a regional or perhaps national scale. Although complementary in the DESIRE project, (calibrated) modelling can provide a more cost-effective and less time-consuming alternative to field testing. Models can be used to establish a link between the application of remediation strategies and their effects on water and nutrient cycles and ultimately field productivity, and possibly also other environmental services. These in turn can be priced. In the DESIRE project, cost-benefit analysis is being applied with cost information stemming from combined expert and land user knowledge, and benefits calculated based on effects as determined by the PESERA model. This will determine the field conditions in which different remediation strategies are likely to be most cost-effective.
Once remediation strategies and policies have been implemented, it is necessary to monitor the extent to which they achieve the sustainability goals for which they were developed and the extent to which they help tackle DLD. This can be done through a three part process:

viii) **Identify potential indicators to represent relevant system components (steps 8a-c):** Change can be measured in relation to the baseline established in step 3. By focusing on linking monitoring activities to the refinement of DLD remediation strategies that are often designed to enhance productivity, it may be possible to further motivate land managers to collect and record data. Many of these indicators may match established indicators based on former research, such as those proposed by WGs 1 and 2 for M&A of DLD and SLM (and used in step 3). However, it may be necessary to further tailor the indicators to the local context to ensure that they adequately reflect the unique characteristics of the local system and the implemented remediation. At this point, it may be necessary to identify additional, more locally-relevant indicators. In the DESIRE project, these local indicators are identified during the “learning for sustainability” workshops described in steps 4 and 5. Indicators based on both local and scientific knowledge may then be evaluated together and prioritized using techniques such as multi-criteria evaluation to ensure that the indicators are both accurate and easy for land managers to apply (e.g. see Box 3). To ensure that the proposed indicators are sufficiently comprehensive to represent all key system components, a number of indicator classification frameworks exist. The most widely used is the DPSIR framework (OECD, 1993; 2001), but many alternatives exist, and it may be sufficient to simply check that there are indicators to represent changes in environmental, social and economic components of the system (e.g. Herrera-Ulloa et al., 2003; Ng and Hills, 2003) (see WGs 1 and 2 White Papers for further details). The accuracy, sensitivity and reliability of local indicators that are new to science may be evaluated further through empirical research (Reed et al., 2006; 2007). However, it is important not to use this as a validation exercise (see section 2.4), but rather to evaluate local knowledge and to provide opportunities for local stakeholders to evaluate the results of empirical research (represented by the dashed arrow from step 8b), leading to an iterative process of selecting the most appropriate indicators (step 8c).

Finally, the last three steps needed to complete the framework comprise dissemination, application, and review of strategies:

ix) **Disseminate strategies and indicators for extension and national and international policy (step 9):** It is necessary to consider how remediation strategies and DLD indicators can be discussed, further refined and disseminated for use among local land managers, extension workers at district scales, and to the national and international policy community. Targeting such a wide audience is a major challenge. Information needs to be provided at different levels of complexity including, for example, scientific papers, policy briefs, leaflets for farmers, and pictorial posters or video/film for schoolchildren. The material aimed at these different stakeholders must also be presented by respecting their own values, language, culture and circumstances. This information may be made available via an online knowledge platform to act as a knowledge repository and facilitate knowledge exchange based on data and information emerging from the
knowledge management systems at national and international levels and material from the UNCCD.

x) Apply remediation strategies, monitor degradation and progress towards goals (step 10): In this context, remediation strategies and policies are then applied, and DLD monitored.

xi) Adjust strategies to ensure goals are met and degradation prevented (step 11): Finally, as goals are met and contexts change, it may be necessary to develop or prioritise new remediation strategies and indicators. As such, this framework is iterative, represented by the dashed arrow between steps 11 and 4.

The proposed approach attempts to overcome the trade-off between the relevance of monitoring locally significant processes, and the comparability of monitoring results across wider spatial scales. Each study site selects indicators from the same minimum set of indicators to ensure comparability (see WGs 1 and 2 White Papers; in DESIRE, this is based on former work in DESERTLINKS and Kosmas et al., 1993; 2001). These are then supplemented with indicators elicited from local stakeholders to ensure local relevance and facilitate links to SLM, whilst supporting comparisons between sites on the basis of shared indicators from the minimum set. Although there are increasing calls for the standardization of local indicators and monitoring procedures to facilitate comparison and communication at coarser spatial scales (e.g. Adeel et al., 2006), we must also retain context-specific local knowledge if we are to interpret whether environmental change represents DLD or is benign. In addition to identifying a minimum set of implementable indicators globally, it is essential to retain flexibility so that indicators can be added to ensure local relevance and can be updated to reflect environmental change. Only in this way will it be possible to capture the complexities of DLD and to provide outputs that are relevant to land managers and can enhance the sustainability of their land management. As such, there is no need to choose between a top-down approach to M&A based around a minimum set of indicators and a bottom-up approach that is sensitive to local contexts. Instead, the framework proposes that a combination of top-down and bottom-up M&A is more likely to achieve reliable and locally relevant assessments of DLD and SLM.

## 2.5. Mainstreaming Monitoring and Assessment

### I. Challenges to mainstreaming

DLD are issues that cut across multiple sectors and need to be seen as an essential part of sustainable development. This has been highlighted by the UN's Bruntland report (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987) and more recently through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (for example, MDG 7 on ensuring on environmental sustainability requires countries to 'integrate mainstream' the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and to reverse the loss of environmental resources) (MDG, 2000). The UNCCD is the only legally-binding multilateral instrument at the interface of environment and development that focuses specifically on land use and land use change in drylands. As such, the challenges of mainstreaming M&A of the land's condition into development frameworks to create a better enabling environment to support M&A are similar to those for the implementation of the UNCCD overall.
To date however, the UNCCD process has been slow to respond to and capitalise upon its cross-cutting position in relation to current challenges (see Chapter 2.4), and this has been to the detriment of efforts to mainstream M&A activities.

At the international level, the UNCCD has initiated linkages to other global environmental governance mechanisms (e.g. NEPAD and PRSPs) (Pearce, 2006). However, at the national level, M&A still needs to be integrated into existing environmental policy which in turn needs to be incorporated into other government policies for rural and national development (DFID/EC/UNDP/World Bank, 2002; World Bank, 2005). For example, poverty reduction strategies require the monitoring of the status and trends in natural resource use including land use and monitoring and assessment systems (Duraiappah and Roddy, 2005). As such, many existing M&A activities under other initiatives and frameworks have relevance to the M&A of desertification and land degradation. However, the poor integration of knowledge and datasets developed outside the UNCCD process and a lack of mainstreaming overall mean that this information has not yet been capitalised upon to its full potential.

While the NAPs developed by many Parties to the UNCCD have identified existing institutional initiatives, policy and regulatory responses and ongoing programmes with relevance to combating desertification and land degradation, NAPs have been primarily formulated as a tool for strategic planning and for coordinating and mobilising resources. Beyond stating that the efforts proposed within NAPs have relevance to, for example, the water and health sectors and existing initiatives therein, there have been few concrete moves to translate the rhetoric of mainstreaming into more integrated practice. Indeed, the gap between the political commitments made by countries upon signing the Convention and the commitment and capacities of national institutions responsible for combating land degradation has been cited as one of the main constraints to the M&A of NAPs (OSS, 2006). Consequently, the centrality of mainstreaming M&A has been largely overlooked, as have the multiple benefits that can ensue for other sectors as a result of the data collected during M&A processes. Furthermore, NAPs are often viewed as yet another programme within the overall development strategy of affected countries. As a result they are often sidelined in favour of “bigger picture” concerns, resulting in both their environmental and developmental significance being underplayed. Greater mainstreaming could thus help to elevate the status of the land and land use to being such a “bigger picture” priority concern, and could yield collateral benefits across a variety of other sectors at the vertical and horizontal scales.

The lack of mainstreaming is not new and is not unique to NAPs. The implementation of the UNCCD has long suffered from a lack of integration of dryland issues into all national decision making processes, policies and laws, institutions, technologies, standards, financing and land planning frameworks (UNDP, 2008).

As seen from the generic steps towards mainstreaming (Box 17), M&A is an essential first step in the strategic assessment phase but also feeds into the awareness, participation and partnership building phases and determines the impacts of interventions at various institutional scales. Consequently, it is of core importance throughout the policy cycle.
**Box 17. Generic Steps for Mainstreaming Drylands into National Development Plans**

**Strategic assessment phase**

Step 1: Identifying and analysing the status of land issues and their environmental, economic and social impacts, taking into account the various direct and indirect drivers of change affecting land issues

Step 2: Identifying and filling information needs/analysis

Step 3: Assessing legal, political and institutional environment for mainstreaming

Step 4: Conducting stakeholders analysis and defining roles, responsibilities and obligations

Step 5: Carrying out capacity assessment

**Awareness, participation and partnership-building phase**

Step 1: Drawing up a communication and awareness creation strategy

Step 2: Building partnerships for mainstreaming

Step 3: Planning for participation and consultation processes

**Planning phase**

Step 1: Undertaking iterative and integrated planning

Step 2: Linking the plans to budgets and funding mechanisms

**Implementation phase**

Step 1: Building capacity

Step 2: Implementing the plans

**Learning, monitoring and evaluation phase**

Step 1: M&E of planning frameworks for impacts

Step 2: Evaluation of the effectiveness of mainstreaming processes

Step 3: Revision of the planning frameworks

*Source: (UNDP, 2008)*

Even with the establishment of NAPs and sometimes National Coordination Bodies to combat land degradation, there is a need to ensure that sufficient attention is given to land degradation in national development plans as there remains a lack of awareness of the converging issues of environmental management and weak mechanisms for coordination and consensus building.

Tunisia is viewed as one of the countries where these issues have been successfully addressed (Global Mechanism, 2002) through long-term commitments, developing a financing strategy, delineating roles and responsibilities of all relevant institutions and organizations, and undertaking extensive dialogue and advocacy (Global Mechanism, 2009). Tunisia's efforts to combat desertification are now embedded in the country's social and economic development plans that are themselves adjusted iteratively through the monitoring and evaluation process (Hajjej and Ben Khatra, 2006). This ensures field level interventions and appropriate policy development in all relevant sectors and adequate institutional capacities for planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation with community participation through local development plans or actions. The Tunisian example builds on lessons learned from previous unsuccessful attempts at mainstreaming with successful results from participatory action research that are now being scaled out. Evaluation involves assessing the effects of projects at household and district level on *inter alia*, the distribution of benefits and effects on regional disparities.
Included is a multi-criteria database of activities to counter desertification that can be used at national, sub-national and local levels and, through careful selection of indicators, can be used to evaluate interventions from multiple perspectives (technical, socio-economic and institutional). Regular observations of desertification are captured and stored in a Desertification Information System.<fnref n="24" /> All interested Parties thus have easily accessible information and importantly the information system interfaces with Tunisia's research community (Hajjej and Ben Khatra, 2006; UNCCD, 2006).

In Swaziland, a review has been undertaken to assess how well the NAP was being integrated into development programmes and policies of the country. As a result of the review, the NAP is now established within the National Development Strategy, the Swaziland Environment Action Plan, the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Plan as well as in other strategies. Furthermore, the Focal Points for all three Rio Conventions in Swaziland report to a desk officer in the National Environment Authority. This helps to harness synergy through implementation of all 3 Agreements (UNCCD, 2006).

Although M&A is predominantly in the national domain, there is a need to ensure that mainstreaming is consistent and synergetic with efforts to achieve the aims of Agenda 21, the MDGs and the UN Rio Conventions (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD) across levels, from international to local. Without further mainstreaming and integration of actions, the likelihood of possible contradictions, negative externalities and duplications that already waste limited resources may increase (Stringer et al., in press).

To facilitate integration, there is a need for a better understanding of the need for M&A in relation to the costs of land degradation (diagnosis), its prevention and the recuperation of land. Secondly, a better understanding of the policy issues that encourage or discourage M&A is required in order to formulate policies and policy frameworks that result in more extensive M&A as part of strategies for encouraging and financing SLM and land use planning. This underscores that policy is not only an important instrument to implement knowledge into action, but that policy is also an important item of scientific research. Thirdly, incentives for M&A need to be given serious consideration.

Enhancing the effectiveness of the mainstreaming of desertification and land degradation by linking to the national agendas of the UNFCCC and the CBD could assist countries to prioritise their operational programmes for the benefit of sustainable development in drylands. Such measures could be effectively supported by the aims of the Paris Declaration which was endorsed on 2 March 2005 which strives to enhance efforts to harmonise, align and manage aid delivery on the basis of monitorable actions and indicators to check progress.<fnref n="25" />

A key issue is a need to demonstrate the value of M&A to both development and environmental constituencies that support the UNCCD and which could themselves benefit from more coordinated and consistent M&A attempts. Previous efforts to assess land degradation have tended to concentrate only on the environmental constituencies (Safriel, 2007) and hence have been weakly competitive with other development issues. Yet with the current high profile of climate change and adaptation, and the supporting levels of available funding to address these challenges, it is all the more important to

<footnote n="24">²⁴ See: www-environment.nat.tn/sid.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ See: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/41/34428351.pdf.</footnote>
stress the potential role that the UNCCD can play. Indeed, with a more integrated approach to M&A that incorporates both environmental and development concerns, the UNCCD is well-placed to provide benefits to other MEAs and government sectors. Appropriate responses by the UNCCD at the international level could involve the development of more concrete partnerships and shared programmes with sectors and UN agencies that the UNCCD currently cross-cuts but with which it does not actively work. This may include, for example, harnessing the Convention's focus on women and youth to develop joint work programmes with UNIFEM and UNICEF and more active engagement with UNAIDS and UNHCR as land degradation concerns are further integrated into efforts to address HIV/AIDS, conflict and migration.

Integrating desertification and land degradation into academic curricula, as is being discussed for mainstreaming climate change into agricultural education (Chakeredza et al., 2009), will eventually enhance national capacities to deal with the land issues on their own and also raise the awareness of civil society.

Using information channels, such as press, radio, television and web, will help in raising the public awareness on land degradation and desertification and could thus be useful to (i) regularly address land issues, (ii) reflect on consumption patterns and production systems, and (iii) raise awareness, for example, of PES and environmental labelling. This could in turn raise the acceptance of the need for national mainstreaming and implementation of M&A.

To influence policy-makers M&A, like all environmental assessments, needs to be translated into the economic language that attracts the attention of policy-makers (World Bank, 2005). In addition, it is crucial to know the acceptable pathways and context whereby scientific information on M&A reaches and influences policy-makers (Carden, 2009). If there is no demand for, or interest in, M&A information, then efforts will be required to stimulate interest through advocacy, communication and education. Where there is interest but no capacity for uptake and use of the information there will be a need to build capacity into the existing government structures and institutions. Often there is a need to identify a champion within government circles who can harness interest in the issues and who will require reliable information in appropriate language and media in order to promote interest in land degradation.

The mainstreaming of M&A is the fundamental basis required in countries affected by, or at risk from, land degradation to guarantee that one can:

* combat desertification;

* rehabilitate land;

* ensure the long-term sustainability of recuperated land;

* prevent the degradation of areas at risk; and,

* assess the effectiveness of existing solutions and actions and adapt them accordingly, where necessary.

It is preferable that M&A is mainstreamed into and builds upon solid *existing* structures in the affected countries. This will not only make mainstreaming of M&A at the national and regional levels more cost- and labour-effective, but will help to achieve a higher acceptance of the need for M&A in countries at risk or already affected by land degradation. A study by OSS (2006) noted that efforts to create specialized institutions
of M&A may in fact hold back the establishment of M&A systems at the different levels
and institutions required (i.e. local to national and international).

A screening of national capacities for establishing and maintaining M&A systems where they do not exist or where better cross-ministerial commitment is required for better mainstreaming is an urgent priority (OSS, 2006). From this assessment, capacity building needs can be identified and given greater emphasis than in the past through inter-departmental committees and other national mechanisms for closer integration of land degradation with other policy issues. As pointed out by UNDP (2008), drylands issues including M&A need to receive long-term (permanent) commitment at all levels of society. This includes such a commitment across all relevant sectors of government.

M&A is essential to establishing the solid and continuous scientific measurement of the status and the trends in land use and degradation. Sound evidence of the status and trends will help build consensus on the steps needed to move forward on the implementation of the Convention (Johnson *et al.*, 2006).

A multi-timescale, multi-spatial and multi-stakeholder M&A system has to be
mainstreamed into national and regional policies that accomplish several things
simultaneously:

i) the monitoring of indicators/thresholds to continuously assess the current state of lands undergoing or at risk from degradation or of rehabilitated lands (immediate reactions to prevent degradation at the local scale);

ii) The detection of medium- to long-term trends (risk assessment, adaptation, mitigation), for instance due to changes in land use systems, technical innovations, land tenure changes, demographic dynamics, or anticipated climate change. This M&A would function above the local level at the regional scale and would link to a global network. The benefits of this medium- to long-term M&A would not be immediate and hence more difficult to fund. However, it could be sensible to strive for a successful mainstreaming of medium- to long-term M&A at the regional, transboundary level. Several countries would need to mainstream this in their national policies.

A major challenge is to ensure that mainstreaming becomes accepted at the local, national, regional and global levels as part of the development goal to significantly impact the livelihoods of the poor (UNDP, 2008), but also to ensure that environmental integrity is maintained so that the land can continue to provide vital ecosystem goods and services.

II. Sustainability of M&A

Land degradation must be given a high priority amongst other competing environmental and development issues in order to succeed in the struggle for adequate resources (manpower, finance, infrastructure, etc. For countries that can demonstrate the importance of combating and preventing land degradation, there will be a need to commit resources over the long term (World Bank, 2005). Long-term commitment to priority environmental issues is gradually being recognised by countries and donors alike (World Bank, 2005; UNDP, 2008).
### III. Conclusions

Building on lessons learned from experiences in mainstreaming environmental issues into policy (World Bank, 2005; UNDP, 2008) and the current status of mainstreaming, the following actions are suggested:

i) Ensure that M&A includes estimates of the overall costs and benefits of establishing and maintaining monitoring systems at local and national levels;

ii) Increase widespread public awareness of the extent and costs of land degradation and of the need to continuously monitor the state of the land;

iii) Build coordination of M&A amongst government ministries and especially environmental, development and financial branches of government;

iv) Encourage not only long-term information exchange, but also personnel exchange particularly between researchers and policymakers;

v) Involve the public via NGOs, civil society organizations, etc. in drafting environmental policy, thus clearly ensuring a participatory approach;

vi) Use the media and other forms of advocacy to highlight the need for M&A at opportune times, for example, during the formulation of development or environmental policy;

vii) Establish demonstrations of different types of M&A and arrange visits and field schools to see the problem on the ground by all concerned institutions, land user groups, etc.; and,

viii) Establish a strong oversight process and long-term commitments for local, national and international M&A.
# 3. Chapter 3: Economic and Policy Considerations

## 3.1. Summary and Key Recommendations

The lack of sufficient data on the economics of DLD is a major limitation in the efforts to convince policy-makers of the need to invest in combating DLD. It is therefore recommended that the UNCCD COP urgently commission a special assessment report on the human, economic and environmental costs (both monetary and non-monetary) of DLD and the benefits that can be obtained by combating DLD to support evidence-based decision making and investment policies.

The special assessment should also address the topics of ecosystem services valuation and potential payments for the protection of those services, and the rebuilding of natural resource assets that have been depleted (e.g. soil carbon, biodiversity, water, forests, etc.). The outcomes of these special assessments should be carefully reviewed by a future session of the COP and a dissemination strategy should be launched to inform the world community.

National decision-makers are flooded with urgent demands for action on a wide range of issues and must make choices among them. A major factor influencing those decisions is the prospective return on investment, as demonstrated by the impressive impacts of the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change 2006” and highly anticipated impacts of the “Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity 2009” on decision-making by governments.

Due to insufficient data, DLD-related benefit/cost analyses are few and based on coarse assumptions. This shortcoming is unfortunate, because combating DLD in principle should yield very significant returns on investment. Hundreds of millions of poor people depend heavily on the land as a source of their livelihoods, and successes in combating DLD can significantly improve their well-being and alleviate their poverty.

SLM options, for example can transform situations of continuing DLD losses into steady SLM gains. SLM can raise incomes, reduce vulnerability to climatic fluctuations, and extend the productive use of land well into the future. Other means of combating DLD and sustaining livelihoods can also deliver important benefits (e.g. land rehabilitation, carbon sequestration, ecotourism, off-farm employment, etc.). M&A activities should be designed to collect the data needed to perform benefit/cost analysis. The benefits/costs of monitoring and assessing should also be included in the analysis, so that Parties gain a clear rationale for engaging in this activity. The analyses need to be forward-looking as well. Many dry areas are likely to be severely affected by climate change, further raising the potential benefits of actions that combat DLD.

Historically, environmental services have largely been assumed to be free goods for the taking, but this has often led to them being plundered, often irreversibly. An accurate benefit/cost analysis must consider the value of environmental services, whether or not a mechanism exists for actual monetary payments for their conservation. Not all values (benefits or costs) are monetary; the land provides a
range of ecosystem services that benefit humans in both tangible and intangible ways (e.g. for cultural and spiritual services).

## 3.2. Introduction

A lack of resources and inappropriate policies are major limitations to improved M&A of DLD, and are associated with a general failure to invest in land. Market failures can partially provide an explanation for the reasons for this under-investment, and hence M&A. This chapter will look at the economic framework needed for successful M&A of DLD, and will suggest some economic and policy instruments that can aid recovery, recuperation and prevention DLD.

## 3.3. The Economic Framework

In line with the view expressed by UNEP (1992), DLD can be viewed as predominantly the outcome of resource management failure<fnref n="26" /> in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, DLD is exacerbated by external events including economic factors (e.g. policy reforms that promote exports at the expense of local consumption, terms of trade and commodity markets movements that put pressure on resource use, and developed country protectionism measures) and environmental factors such as prolonged drought. While the vicious cycle of poverty and DLD remains a hugely important issue in the international agenda for coordinated policy action, increasing pressure on ecosystems as evidenced by the recent turmoil in 2008 of the world's food markets pose new challenges for a global response to food security, the environment and to the prospects for growth and sustainable development in different parts of the world.

From an economic perspective, DLD can be understood under three main concepts: (i) externalities, (ii) the valuation of the economic cost of DLD, and (iii) the loss of ecosystem services.

While in part DLD costs are borne by those responsible for the externality, producers do not face the full consequences of their actions either via the market or through other mechanisms such as institutions. The effects of these externalities are persistent and develop over time; they may at times prove irreversible and thus will also impact on future generations. Assessing the potential size, timing and impacts and as a result, the costs of policies to combat the effects of DLD is a complex issue. The challenge is to devise M&A systems that are robust to a diversity of social, environmental and institutional needs.

In assessing DLD, it is important to separate the effects of DLD on producer performance from the effects of other events or policies that are not related to DLD. It is also important to consider the ramifications of external developments that may involve economic trade-offs that impact on assessments of DLD or on the sustainability of policies to deal with DLD. For example, higher agricultural prices may help reverse the

<footnote n="26">²⁶ Here, resource management failure is considered as an economic cost and, in particular, is treated as an inefficiency measured by the discrepancy between maximum potential output and the producers' actual output. In other words, by the discrepancy between actual and socially optimal values of inputs and outputs. The latter emphasizes that DLD give rise to externalities associated with market failures.</footnote>
process of land degradation by raising the value of farm land and raising the living standards of the poor, but they can also create incentives for more intensive land use which may be to the detriment of the natural resource base. Similarly, trade reforms, institutional monitoring and technological change may have beneficial economic effects but they can also have adverse effects on land degradation to the extent that changes in relative prices for agricultural products resulting from economic reforms or technological change result in production shifts towards outputs and cultivation practices that result in greater land degradation (Coxhead and Jayasuriya, 1994).

# I. The Externalities of DLD

The notion of externality translates the interdependence between the activities of producers or consumers, that is, between production functions outside the market. Market failure creates externalities – a situation where productive or consumptive activities inflict involuntary costs or benefits on others. Applying this notion to the economics of the environment leads to defining the impact of economic activity in terms of environmental degradation: externalities can be positive, reinforcing the development of a territory, country or region; however, they are essentially negative, creating a non-optimal situation. There are several typologies of negative externalities. Three types are key to understanding DLD:

i) The externalities of congestion related to population pressure: negative effects of the exploitation of a portion of resource on the revenue resulting from exploitation of other portions of that resource. Certain off-site effects of desertification (e.g. silting-up of dams following soil erosion) can also be considered as an externality of congestion.

ii) Prodigal externalities of income: joint or collective operation on a resource gives rise to a fall of the average production of each farmer. This type of externality is illustrated by the example of the “Tragedy of the Commons” (Hardin, 1968) where land is freely accessible and due to this fact deliberately overexploited by stock breeders. This example has been a standard reference used to explain the deterioration of the land in arid zones and their desertification. However, since the end of the 1980s, several lines of research have examined the question of regulation of access to common resources to show the existence of rules and institutions of access to and use of these resources that allow their renewal. Scholars of the commons argue that Hardin confused common property with open access, failing to distinguish between collective property rights and no property rights (Ciriacy-Wantrup and Bishop, 1975).

iii) The externalities arising from interdependence between an economic activity and the 'natural' production of environmental services likely to be used by economic actors or used for the production of other ecosystem services: here, the externality harms the multifunctionality of agriculture and limits, for example, the seepage and storage of water in the soil, the life of micro-organisms and the fauna of the soil responsible for the renewal of fertility. The focus here is on environmental services whose production can be optimized through adapted practices.

In general, the costs of externalities can be internalized in two ways:
i) By attributing property rights (Coase, 1960). Exchanges escape the market, however, by attributing property rights of externalities, contracts signed outside the market can be reinserted into the economic system. For example, in the case of a positive externality, a producer pays for the costs of the environmental services whose production is hindered or is paid for by the production of this service. But this contractual solution is optimal only if the costs of transaction associated with these contracts are zero. The cost of transaction includes the costs of information and negotiation of these contracts as well as those of regulation related to their implementation (possibly including sanctions in case of failure of compliance). Experiences show that these costs are never zero, and contractual solutions are thus inefficient. Scholars argue that a failure to understand the significance of transaction costs of natural resource management will lead to a sub-optimal policy prescription (Adhikari and Lovett, 2005).

ii) By establishing regulatory instruments of state management such as taxes or norms. Taxes make it possible to account for the economic loss generated by externalities (sanction of the pollutant and compensation for the victim) in a monetary form, but do not directly solve the problem of the deterioration of natural resources. The introduction of norms (e.g. quotas of resources obtained or promotion of the modes of sustainable exploitation) is an alternative which can take this aspect into account. This option assumes the existence of institutions that guarantee compliance with the established norms.

Externalities are linked to the fact that the resource which supports economic activity suffers from an absence or lack of clearly defined property rights. In a situation of private property, there are no prodigal externalities of revenue because externalities are systematically internalized by the rule of efficiency and the maximization of revenue (levelling out between marginal production and average costs). The externalities of congestion are internalized by assigning private property rights, introducing taxation or norms that regulate the efficient use of the resources in question.

This efficiency of private property is based on two axioms: the axiom of composition and that of authority. According to the axiom of composition, complete control of the resource must be devolved to a well-defined group for efficient use. According to the axiom of authority, this group must act with a unified objective. On the one hand, respect for these two axioms (and thus the regime of private property) is not enough to guarantee a socially-efficient outcome of resource management, notably because of a strong preference of individuals to consume resources now rather than later due to the income constraint of the poor populations (Larson and Bromley 1990). This is usually referred to as “the rate of time preference” – as a parameter in an individual's utility function that captures the trade-off between consumption today and consumption in the future. The higher the time preference, the higher the discount placed on returns receivable or costs payable in the future (Frederick, Loewenstein & O'Donoghue, 2002). This is particularly true for the problems of desertification of the lands for cultivation in the poorest zones, where private property of land is very often accompanied by degradation of soil fertility through lack of investment.

On the other hand, the establishment of private property also involves some transaction costs (Platteau, 2003) which must be compared with the transaction costs
of the common property (also called costs of governance on the same resources<fnref n="27" />). Many illustrations and arguments show the relative efficiency of communal management of resources. For example, the system of fallow with lands lying fallow on the communal basis has enabled the recovery of soil fertility. However, population pressure has shortened or prevented any fallowing.

In rain-fed zones, the disappearance of common fallows converted to familial agriculture has led to a process of soil and water decline. Mechanization (labour) and fertilizers have also resulted in soil degradation. For agriculture, DLD is often the result of:

* the lack of financial capital to invest in land, small size of plots and lack of labour;

* overuse of fertilizers, inappropriate means of production due to producers' choices and a lack of knowledge management: under estimation of their utility in the long term, and a lack of knowledge of the value of the environment.

There is a need to study in more detail the externalities, their costs and possible means for internalization via combinations of market and institutional interventions.

## II. The Valuation of DLD

In order to measure benefits gained from actions controlling DLD, it is important to develop different indicators, including socioeconomic ones. These indicators should establish a baseline which will enable the assessment of trends, successes and failures at different scales. Using the baseline, changes in land use can be measured, and assessment of the implementation of strategic objectives can be made.

To demonstrate the impacts of land degradation, models can be used to link environmental processes with socioeconomic systems.<fnref n="28" /> The Panarchy approach (Gunderson and Holling, 2002) and Dahlem Development Paradigm (Reynolds et al., 2007; see also White Papers of Workings Groups 1 and 2) are examples of integrated methods for estimating the benefits associated with actions to combat DLD. However, as the focus of this chapter is on the economic dimension of land degradation, only the specification of costs and benefits of environmental quality from an economic point of view will be considered. The economic approach to environmental valuation, considers both direct and indirect methods for estimating costs and benefits, mainly in the form of avoided costs for controlling land degradation, and costs for inaction will be looked at.

### a) The economic value of the environment

Values for ecosystem goods and services are not limited to market prices of commodities arising from land uses; in other words, values can also be determined through indirect means. Two types of use values exist: direct- and indirect-use values. The direct-use value of natural resources comprises the market values of all outputs coming from its exploitation. These include commercial goods and services derived from the land, for example, crops, timber, medicinal plants and wildlife for consumption.

<footnote n="27">²⁷ Resources for which the implementation of private property can have prohibitive costs: water (rivers, seas, etc. for aims of irrigating and fishing) and lands (breeding, firewood, gathering, etc.).</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸ For instance, see Kragt and Bennett, 2009.</footnote>
These values are easily calculated due to the existence of a consumer market. Direct values also include the value of non-consumptive uses such as the enjoyment of recreational and cultural activities that do not require harvesting of ecosystem products.

The indirect-use value refers to all services produced by ecosystem goods, including those that cannot be directly measure through markets. It considers the contribution to the production of economic outputs through the services provided in the environment by ecosystems and by the various components in the functioning of the ecosystem. These include the contribution to the total local and global natural balance (e.g. carbon sequestration, biodiversity, storm protection function of mangrove forests which benefits coastal properties and infrastructure). In most cases, a market for services provided does not exist; its value is therefore measured through substitutes or shadow markets (the extent of consumers' consent to pay for conservation of those services).

In addition to these values, there are non-use values known as passive values: the value of existence and that of inheritance. The value of existence states that individuals are willing to pay to ensure that living organisms, species or ecosystems continue to exist independent of the use by these same individuals. The value of inheritance introduces temporal dynamics into the value of existence by stating the willingness of individuals to pay to guarantee the existence of resources, living beings, goods and services for future generations with the assumption that the next generation's preferences will remain constant with those of previous generations.<fnref n="29" /> It is called value of option<fnref n="30" />, quasi-option<fnref n="31" /> or inheritance. The values of options and quasi-options express the future use value of environmental goods. In other words, option values are premiums placed on maintaining resources and landscapes for future possible direct and indirect uses, some of which may not yet be known.

The total economic value of environmental goods is the sum of the immediate direct- and indirect-uses, but also accounts for these non-use values (see Table 3). Different land use options will be characterised by a different combination of direct, indirect and non-use values, and thus a different total economic value. Though concrete studies concerning the total economic value of the natural environment have been carried out on humid environments (Barbier et. al, 1997), to our knowledge, none have been carried out on arid and semi-arid environments affected by desertification.

<table><caption>**Table 3.** Value of the environment (Faucheux and Noël, 1996; World Bank, 2003).</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Use Value</th><th rowspan="2">Non-use Value</th></tr><tr><th>Direct</th><th>Indirect</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Present</td><td>Standard measurement of the products obtained from the</td><td><ul><li>Measurement of benefits of the services provided by the environment</li><li>Contribution of the various organisms to the functioning of the ecosystem</li><li>Environmental functions of the ecosystem (biological habitat, etc.)</li></ul></td><td>Value of existence</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="29">²⁹ There is no guarantee that preferences will remain the same; the value is sometimes regarded as use value in the future. See Brismar et al., 2004.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰ The value of option allows one to define the future use value of resources which is considered to be superior to the flow of benefits currently obtained with modern technologies. See Bishop, 1982.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹ The value of quasi-option represents the importance which individuals attach to the reversibility of an ongoing action. See Faucheux and Noël, 1996.</footnote>
<table><tr><td></td><td>environment</td><td><ul><li>Contribution of the ecosystem to the total balances, etc.</li></ul></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Future</td><td></td><td>Value of option and quasi-option</td><td>Value of inheritance</td></tr></table>

There are several available techniques for environmental valuation (Table 4). These are based mainly on a cost-benefit analysis and split into either direct or indirect valuation strategies. In practice, very few of them have been used to evaluate the cost of DLD.

The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) enables the evaluation of the damage costs avoided by the implementation of a policy and the resultant benefits for consumers. It makes it possible to establish a demand curve for the environmental goods under consideration. This method is used as a decision-making aid: indeed, the comparison between the costs of implemented policies and the benefits individuals draw from them can set the basis for decision about policy implementation. However, the CBA framework is appropriate for making relatively small-scale decisions, and works well when combined with other evaluation techniques.

<table><caption>**Table 4.** Ecosystem valuation techniques (modified from IUCN/TNC/The World Bank, 2004).</caption><thead><tr><th>Methodology</th><th>Approach</th><th>Applications</th><th>Data requirements and methods</th><th>Limitations</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Revealed preference methods</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Market price</td><td>People's willingness to pay</td><td>Direct consumable, commercial goods obtained from an ecosystem</td><td><ul><li>Costs to buy or sell a good or product</li><li>Collect market data on prices</li><li>Estimate quantity consumed/sold</li><li>Multiply price x quantity</li></ul></td><td>Market price not always available, distorted market singles incorrect prices ecosystem goods</td></tr><tr><td>Production function</td><td>The economic contribution of ecosystems to other production and consumption activities<br/><strong>Market value as an input</strong></td><td>Any impacts that affect health (e.g. air or water pollution)</td><td><ul><li>Determine contribution of goods and services to related source of production</li><li>Specify relationship between changes in goods and services and changes in related output</li><li>Relate change in provision of goods and services to physical change in output</li><li>Estimate market value of change in production</li></ul></td><td>Data on change in service and consequent impact on production often lacking</td></tr><tr><td>Travel costs</td><td>How much people spend to use or</td><td>Recreation services</td><td><ul><li>Identify area from which visitors come and divide into</li></ul></td><td>Limited to recreational benefits; hard</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td></td><td>benefit from using ecosystems for recreational purposes<br/><strong>People's implied willingness to pay</strong></td><td></td><td>zones of equal travel costs<br/>• Sample visitors in each zone for travel costs and socio-economic characteristics<br/>• Obtain visitation rates for each zone<br/>• Estimate travel costs<br/>• Carry out regression of trips against other variables<br/>• Construct demand curve and calculate consumer surplus</td><td>to use when trips are to multiple destinations</td></tr><tr><td>Hedonic pricing</td><td>Difference in (property or wage) prices that can be ascribed to the existence or level of nearby environmental goods and services</td><td>Air quality, scenic beauty, cultural benefits</td><td>Prices and characteristics of goods</td><td>Limited where markets are distorted, choices are constrained by income, information about environmental conditions is not widespread and data are scarce. Requires vast quantities of data; very sensitive to specification</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Cost-based methods</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Replacement costs</td><td>The costs of replacing an environmental good or service<br/><strong>A minimum estimate of money saved</strong></td><td>Specific natural ecosystem functions or assets with man-made production processes</td><td>• Ascertain benefits associated with goods and services<br/>• Identify most likely alternative to provide equivalent level of benefits<br/>• Calculate costs of installing and running replacement</td><td>Relies heavily on the assumption that replacing the original good or service is worthwhile and that the benefits generated by the investment in doing so outweigh the cost of replacement</td></tr><tr><td>Mitigative or avertive expenditure</td><td>The costs of mitigating or averting the effects of the loss of an</td><td>• Watershed protection benefits of selected harvesting</td><td>• Identify hazards arising from loss of good/service<br/>• Locate area and population who</td><td>Potential cause of overestimation (cost of preventing or</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td></td><td>environmental good or service<br><b>A minimum estimate of money saved</b></td><td>regimes<br><ul><li>Coastal marshes and mangroves</li></ul></td><td>would be affected<br><ul><li>Obtain information on people's responses and measures taken to cope with effects of loss</li><li>Cost the response</li></ul></td><td>defending against degradation of the environment)</td></tr><tr><td>Damage cost avoided</td><td>The costs avoided from DLD or loss of biodiversity<br><b>A minimum estimate of money saved</b></td><td>Land-use options</td><td><ul><li>Identify protective functions of goods and services</li><li>Identify damages caused by loss of different degrees of protection</li><li>Locate infrastructure, output or population that would be affected</li><li>Obtain information on likelihood and frequency of damage occurring</li><li>Costs damages associated with given loss of goods and services</li></ul></td><td>Assume that expenditures to repair damages or to replace ecosystem services are valid measures of the benefits provided. However, costs are usually not an accurate measure of benefits</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><b>Stated preference method</b></td></tr><tr><td>Contingent valuation</td><td>The amount people would pay/accept under the theoretical condition that biodiversity could be bought and sold<br><b>People's stated willingness to pay</b></td><td>Any service</td><td><ul><li>Ask respondents their WTP/WTA for good/service</li><li>Draw up frequency distribution relating WTP/WTA statements to number of people making them</li><li>Cross tabulate WTP/WTA responses with explanatory variables</li><li>Carry out multivariate analysis to correlate responses to explanatory variables</li><li>Gross up sample results</li></ul></td><td>Many potential sources of bias in responses; guidelines exist for reliable application</td></tr><tr><td>Conjoint analysis</td><td>Preferential analysis between various ecosystem</td><td>Any service</td><td><ul><li>Obtains information on preferences between various alternatives of environmental goods</li></ul></td><td>Strategic biases</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td></td><td>goods and services</td><td></td><td>and services, at different prices or costs</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Choice experiment</td><td>Ask respondents to choose their preferred option from a set of alternatives with particular attributes</td><td>Any service</td><td><ul><li>Survey of respondents</li><li>Present a series of alternative resource or use options, each of which are defined by various attributes including price</li></ul></td><td>Similar to those of contingent valuation; analysis of the data generated is complex</td></tr><tr><td colspan="5"><strong>Other methods</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Benefit transfer</td><td>Use results obtained in one context in a different context</td><td>Any for which suitable comparison studies are available</td><td>Valuation exercises at another similar site</td><td>Can be very inaccurate, as many factors vary even when contexts seem 'similar', should be used with extreme caution</td></tr></table>

## b) The costs of DLD

A valuation of the economic costs of DLD would increase our awareness of the extent of this phenomenon and its impacts on rural development and agriculture, and would be a useful tool for decision-making on sectoral orientations for development assistance (UNEP-GEF, 2007).

The methods for macro-economic valuation of DLD costs are mainly divided into methods using a global scale and methods using a local scale. The former is based on micro-studies to determine the global rates of decline of productivity or economic loss per hectare, such as estimates of soil erosion by agro-ecological models, and the latter extends these micro-results by aggregation as a function of spatial and human data; these methods are thus complementary.

So far, the economic impacts of DLD have only been considered on an annual basis (e.g., Dregne and Chou, 1992). But desertification is a process in time and for this reason we must consider the data over a period of time. To calculate the total cost, it is necessary to show the accumulation of losses.

A great deal of work on modelling erosion phenomena has been done since the beginning of the 1960s. The initial reference for most of this research was the universal soil loss equation (USLE). The equation estimates the loss of land or the annual mean erosion rate over the long term on the sloping fields. Since its development, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) has been used for forecasting and analyzing erosion, particularly with respect to cultivated land. It has been developed in many different ways, from the formulation of alternative models for soil loss to the modelling of relationships between soil loss, nutrient loss and productivity. Identifying these relationships makes it possible to calculate the economic costs of soil erosion.
The second approach for evaluating the costs of DLD is based on dividing the rural space according to its main economic uses. In general, these include: crop fields (irrigated and rain-irrigated crops), grazing areas for livestock and forests used mainly for producing wood and non-ligneous products. By applying a rate of decline in the natural productivity of these spaces, one obtains the overall losses of rural production. The evaluations of these rates of decline in productivity depend on the state of DLD observed; the data come from local observatories of DLD or experts' judgments.

The other part of the work consists in evaluating the cost of DLD by hectare for each type of land or activity. This valuation was based on several micro-surveys conducted in Australia and the United States: the loss of productivity related to DLD processes is globally estimated to be at 40%; each year, the degradation costs US$ 7 per hectare of grazing land, US$ 38 per hectare of rain-irrigated crops and US$ 250 per hectare of irrigated crop. These figures are then applied to all of the world's surface areas which have been degraded.

From these calculations, estimated losses were US$ 11 billion each year from irrigated land, US$ 8 billion due to the desertification of rain-irrigated crops, and US$ 23 billion following the degradation of grazing lands. The annual economic cost due to desertification was estimated to be US$ 42 billion (1990 prices [Dregne, 1991]; these estimates need to be updated).

In many countries, the lack of data, whether it is scattered in various institutions (and thus difficult to obtain) or simply not available often means that it is impossible to evaluate such costs for DLD. Various combinations of environmental and agro-economic data may be used instead. For example, in Tunisia, the national valuations of land areas lost each year make a distinction between irrigated surfaces and rain-irrigated crops. It is thus possible to calculate the economic loss for cereals on the basis of mean yields from this land and of the international wheat price (République Tunisienne, 2003). These valuations are done by means of a spatial approach, taking mainly into account the costs of desertification in terms of lost rural production (agriculture, livestock breeding and forests). These estimates only consider the provisioning services for food and wood and are therefore likely to be underestimates of the total value of ecosystem services as outlined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Most valuations are based on a reference period and use data series for long periods of time. This makes it possible to limit the particular effect of a given event, which is a fundamental criterion for dry regions in which rainfall varies greatly. However, the final annual value always depends on the period of time chosen as a reference. For the Sahel region for instance, the estimates based on the period 1970-1985 will give annual costs for desertification which are probably higher than those calculated for 1990-2003 due to the periodicity of the variation in rainfall.

All of the methods looked at hypothesize that the data obtained at a micro-scale and from local experiments can be extrapolated. They are used as a basis for representative modelling of the main types of land and farming methods whose results are then aggregated to a national level. At this level, they can be used to define mean annual rates of decline in productivity depending on the economic activities in question. The costs resulting from these two types of methods are generally gross costs since the way in which rural populations effectively adapt to the degradation of land (for instance, by using techniques for conserving water and soil) is not taken into account.
Numerous different activities occur in dry areas according to the seasons. The main limitation of spatial approaches is that they can not take into account this multi-functionality of space when evaluating DLD costs: with these approaches, the rural surface areas are in fact broken down according to the predominant activity. As for erosion models, these mainly evaluate the degradation of crop soils and sometimes that of integrated agro-pastoral systems. They do not apply to natural grazing lands which make up most arid regions.

The costs of DLD expressed in monetary terms also depend greatly on the price of reference cereals. These prices may vary by a factor of two from year to year and very strong variations have been observed for any given year. Moreover, they differ between the city and the countryside and according to whether they are considered at the producer scale or that of international exchange rates. For this reason, some valuations use cost intervals taking into account both the lowest price and the highest price observed for the same cereals.

These valuations use remote sensing services or national databases monitoring the evolution of the degradation, land use and rural production. The heterogeneity of the data available, depending on each country, leads in many cases and in a pragmatic way to the use of distinctly different evaluation methods. It would appear a priori, that it is hard to compare these results.

## The issue of indirect effects

Most evaluations only deal with the direct effects of desertification and the degradation of land. Other effects, including, inter alia: the silting-up of dams and subsequent losses of water and electricity, variation in fishing production and disturbances to shipping on water courses, the impacts of dust clouds on air transport and human health or on a more global level, the losses of carbon and biodiversity due to diversification and land degradation, are rarely evaluated. For example, Morocco and Tunisia have estimated the costs of the silting-up of dams: the amount of water lost each year is translated into the amount of electricity lost (KWh) or the loss of industrial and domestic water, which is evaluated on the basis of current prices.<fnref n="32" />

Given the limitations referred to above, most available estimates of the costs of desertification must be considered as largely under-estimates of the true costs (Requier-Desjardins and Bied-Charreton, 2006).

## c) The Loss of Ecosystem Services

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) recommends an approach in terms of services provided by ecosystems. Ecosystem services are classified as **provisioning** (e.g. the production of food, fresh water, wood and fuel), **regulating** (e.g. flood regulation, water purification), **cultural** (considering aesthetic and cultural values) and finally, **supporting** (via the cycling of nutrients, formation of soil, etc.). The loss of these services includes monetary and non-monetary values. Many institutions, among which the World Bank and UNEP, are currently trying to implement this approach for

<footnote n="32">³² These indirect costs of desertification account for 0.06% of the GDP in Tunisia and 0.03% in Morocco.</footnote>
operational purposes by using classic or innovative methods of economic valuation
(Pagiola et al., 2004; Shepherd, 2008).<fnref n="33" />

**3.4. Costs for Monitoring**

Cost estimates for monitoring have rarely been attempted and will vary with the socio-economic conditions of a particular region or country. An indicative example of likely costs is provided in Box 18.

**Box 18. Budget for Satellite Monitoring**

**Step 1:** Monitoring of the seasonal and inter-annual dynamics of the vegetation on the basis of global, freely available satellite time series data (e.g. MODIS; MERIS; Spot Vegetation; Spatial Resolution: 1km; Temporal Resolution: 1 month).

**Step 2:** Assessment of the vegetation condition over specified base time periods (e.g. every 5 years) on the basis of periodical sampling grids (e.g. every 1° in geographical length and width of 10 km²). A model for this would be the current sampling approach by FAO for a remote-investigation-based assessment of forest condition and changes (see www.fao.org/forestry/fra2010-remotesensing/en/).

Personnel expenses and hard/software costs amounting to € 100,000 per year. These costs will cover global monitoring; it would cost much less for monitoring one country. The main costs result from establishing a network of regional partners which are responsible for on-site control as well as from satellite data, which at the moment would be reliably obtained from commercial suppliers. Based on Spot data (to 10 m colour, see http://www.spotimage.fr/) about 20 pictures with a sampling grid of 1° would cost € 2,700 each in the case of Burkina Faso. In addition, expenditures on the personnel as well as hard and software are required. Costs for Burkina Faso add up to approximately € 200,000.

If all dry areas/degradation-threatened areas worldwide are projected, roughly 3,200 sampling areas would be needed, which means that costs for satellite data will total € 8,640,000 for an interval of 5 years. In this case, personnel expenses play only a minor role.

Clearly, these costs will vary greatly depending on the source of data and manpower required for each particular area or country.

**3.5. Suggestions for Policy Support for DLD and M&A**

DLD is a complex socio-environmental phenomenon caused by intricate interactions among environmental, socioeconomic, cultural, institutional and political factors across space and time. Because DLD is a multi-dimensional, multisectoral, multi-actor and multilevel phenomenon, an appropriate approach is not to create yet another policy layer (institutions and organizations) but either to (a) modify relevant policies to account for desertification or (b) synthesize and integrate horizontally and vertically relevant policies to act in harmony and coordination.

A variety of economic instruments such as tradable certificates, resource pricing instruments and fiscal mechanisms are required for efficient resource allocation. Market-based approaches to land resource management could be applied to harness and

<footnote n="33">³³ See Pagiola *et al.*, 2004 for the application of classic economic methods to environmental evaluation; UNEP is working on an energy approach.</footnote>
channel resources to achieve environmental goals through an economic incentive approach to regulation. Furthermore, a number of regulatory instruments could be used to address the under-valuation of land resources. Various types of agreements and pacts have been used, especially at the local level, to promote cooperation among different actors to achieve SLM. The following are a few such instruments that could be applicable both at national and international levels to address the problem of DLD.

# I. Instruments for the Management of Externalities

## a) New cross-scale mechanisms

This class of instruments is based on the recognition that excessive resource depletion and environmental degradation arise from distorted price signals which result from the absence or thinness of markets for resource and environmental assets. To the extent that the failure of markets to emerge is due to the lack of well-defined, secure, and transferable property rights over resources as opposed to other reasons such as high transaction costs or failure to enforce contracts, establishment of secure property rights should lead to the emergence of markets and scarcity prices for the resource in question (assuming other barriers are absent). With exclusive and secure property rights, resource depletion is internal to the owners/users, while under open access it is external to the users. The consequence of this internalization is that the owner will not engage in resource extraction activities unless the price of the resource commodity covers not only the extraction cost but also the depletion or user cost, which is the foregone future benefit as a result of present use.

### Box 19. A Model for Reducing DLD: The Use of Permits

In this model, an aggregate level of allowable intensive use of land is set for each local region. Since the aggregate level of land use is set at or below the current level, an artificial scarcity is created that permits positive market prices. Producers with a deficit of permits or with expansion plans must secure land using permits. Alternatively, they may purchase permits from other producers who are either able to reduce land-intensive production at a lower cost than the producers can, or who find it more profitable to sell their permits than use them themselves. Thereby, the desired reduction of land degradation (and hence the desired level of ambient environmental quality) is attained at the minimum possible cost to society and a strong incentive is provided for continued efforts to improve efficiency. Even if the aggregate level is set at the current level of intensive land use, the expansion of economic activity would create a scarcity of permits with all the desired incentives described above. Furthermore, government and non-government environmental organizations have the option to purchase and retire permits in order to speed up an improvement in environmental quality.

Instead of a charge for land use, one alternative could be to fulfil special requirements which give rights for intensive land use. It is similar to land cover mitigation schemes already being used in Germany. Various German Länder and some city authorities employ mitigation schemes, in which all land covers are “scored” according to ecological or landscape characteristics, requiring reductions in score caused by developments such as roads, housing or mines to be made good by enhancements of scores in other areas. The relative values implied by the scores, and the monitoring of their effectiveness, are contentious.
## b) Payment for environmental services

Market-based approaches to environmental management such as PES have been recognized as one of the most innovative means of financing ecosystem conservation programmes. The concept of PES represents a new and more direct conservation paradigm, in which producers of environmental services receive direct compensation from beneficiaries of the ecosystem services against the benefits they receive from the former (Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002; Pagiola et al., 2002). It usually covers four types of environmental services including: i) watershed protection, ii) biodiversity conservation, iii) landscape aesthetics, and iv) carbon sequestration (Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002). A significant amount of resources could be generated locally to finance programmes aimed at combating desertification. More than 400 PES schemes are currently under operation in many countries with public-private partnerships.

**Box 20. Examples of PES Schemes Around the World**

Costa Rica pays US $20-44/ha/yr for forest conservation, based on the opportunity cost of land use change. In the USA, Conservation Reserve Program, land owners receive US$ 50/ha/yr as opportunity costs of conservation measures. In Ecuador, municipal water and electrical utility companies each donate 1% of total revenues to watershed protection. In Brazil, a water utility in Sao Paulo pays 1% of total revenues for the restoration and conservation of the Corumbatai watershed. Funds are used to establish tree nurseries and for reforestation along riverbanks. In France, land owners receive US$320/ha/year for 7 years, equivalent to 75% of farm income opportunity cost and actual cost of switching agricultural technology. EU regulation for regional action provides payments in its framework for rural development for farmers to be paid for taking care of their land. Some environmental NGOs' activities, mainly reforestation and the use of alternative energy technologies, are funded by voluntary markets, allowing donor emissions to be compensated. In Costa Rica, a hydropower company pays US$ 10/ha/year to a local conservation NGO for hydrological services in the Peñas Blancas watershed.

PES schemes in partnership with private sector organizations in dryland countries could generate considerable resources locally to combat DLD and promote NRM. It is important to note that any instrument that provides external funds and requires local decisions, but is not run locally by those who benefit from the action, is vulnerable to corruption. This should not be underestimated.

Another alternative to subsidies is a federal scheme for removing land from agricultural production by offering standard payments compensating for income forgone through 10-year contracts, up to a specified percentage of each producer's area. It is widely regarded as attracting land of least value to agriculture rather than land of most value to biodiversity. The disadvantage is that it provides no long-term security and has low conservation effectiveness (Clough, 2000).

## c) International cooperation and state mechanisms

### Debt-for-nature swaps

Debt-for-nature swaps would be an interesting area of financing for combating DLD in those countries where investments in conservation of degraded lands are badly needed. Under this mechanism, developed countries forgive a portion of developing countries foreign debt in exchange for local investments in land conservation measures. This
mechanism provides opportunities to deal with the problems of developing nations'
indebtedness and adverse effects of production practices on the environment. This kind
of innovative international financial mechanism is already in operation in many low and
middle income countries of Africa and Latin America.

**Box 21. Examples of Debt-for-nature Swaps**

The United States forgave US$ 26 million in debt from Costa Rica to finance forest conservation over the next 16 years. This will help protect one of the world's richest biodiversity hotspots and forested landscapes. In 1994, Canada forgave 75% of the CAD $ 22.7 million face value of bilateral debt of Peru. The Peruvian Ministry of Economics and Finance allocated 25% of the debt amount in local currency (CAD $ 5.69 million) to social development and environmental management. The Bulgarian government allocated US$ 83.5 million of debt forgiveness from the Swiss government to establish a fund for an environmental cleanup. A number of international conservation organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) are facilitating the debt-for-nature swaps instrument for protecting tropical forests in Central and South America. In a typical case, The Conservancy provides around US$ 1 million to purchase US$ 10-24 million of the country's debt from the U.S. Treasury. The country then continues to make its regular debt payments into the Conservation Trust Fund. The fund is used to finance forest management and biodiversity conservation. This mechanism would be a potential in many dryland countries where investment in combating DLD is likely to be crucial to conserving a range of ecosystem services, including biodiversity conservation, watershed protection, and carbon sequestration.

Fiscal mechanisms

Fiscal instruments (taxes and subsidies) can be used to remove the wedge between private and social costs and benefits. Resource-based and environment-intensive goods and services are generally underpriced in terms of social costs. This results in overproduction and overconsumption which in turn results in environmental damage at a higher than socially optimal level. Taxes can be imposed on unsustainable production or on final products associated with externalities to internalize all costs. In the case of land degradation, the easier approach is tax concessions favouring land use retaining biodiversity etc. Instead of tax concessions to reduce land degradation to optimal levels, producers can instead be subsidized to achieve the same thing. The optimal environmental subsidy is also equal to marginal environmental damage. From the land users' perspective, the land conservation benefits are externalities. As such, they do not take them into consideration when making their land use decisions, thus reducing the likelihood that they will adopt practices that generate such benefits. A mechanism is necessary which pays land users for the global environmental services they are generating so that the additional income stream makes the proposed practices privately profitable. Recognition of this problem and of the failure of past approaches in dealing with it has led to efforts to develop systems in which land users are paid for the environmental services they generate, thus aligning their incentives with those of society as a whole (Pagiola et al., 2004).

International payments for environmental services

International payments for carbon sequestration represent the most developed form of
international payments mechanisms for environmental services (IPES). A new
international legal framework for climate change mitigation through Reduced Emissions
from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) is currently under discussion in order to
provide incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation. The
proposed REDD policy has a provision of compensating developing countries in
proportion to the amount of carbon emissions that are reduced (on a voluntary basis) if
the country reduces its national deforestation rate below the baseline. Exploring the
potential of linking IPES with the proposed REDD mechanism under the UNFCCC would
help to generate financial resources for dryland countries. It also enhances synergies
between climate change mitigation, local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation,
ensuring equitable outcomes through market-based incentives (Myers, 2007; Cowie et
al., 2007). At present, the two environmental markets are envisaged as being separate,
and approaching the REDD through the lens of IPES would help to attain the carbon
sequestration and biodiversity goals concurrently as well as mobilizing financial
resources for combating DLD in many dryland countries of West Africa and Central Asia.

Legal liability

This class of instruments aims to induce socially responsible behaviour by establishing
legal liability for (i) natural resource damage, (ii) environmental damage, (iii) property
damage, (iv) damage to human health or loss of life, (v) non-compliance to
environmental laws and regulations, and (vi) non-payment of due taxes, fees or charges.
In a sense, all instruments have as an ultimate enforcement incentive, the threat of legal
action and the use of the state's coercive powers (for example, if effluent taxes are not
paid, or an adequate number of emission permits to cover emissions are not purchased);
administrative and ultimately legal measures are provided for to ensure compliance. The
difference between liability systems from other instruments (except for enforcement
incentives and non-compliance charges) is that the threat of legal action to recover
damages is the economic instrument that internalizes the external cost in the first
instance. Unlike taxes and charges that are set at the level of marginal damage cost to
alter the relative probability of environmentally harmful products and activities, and unlike
environmental bonds and deposit refund systems that internalize ex ante, the
environmental risk liability systems assess and recover damages ex post. Yet these
systems do have the effect of preventive incentives as long as the expected (certainty
equivalent) damage payments exceed the benefits from non-compliance. The frequency
with which liability cases are brought to courts and the magnitude of damages awarded
influence ex ante behaviour of potentially liable parties.

Liability systems are not recommended for developing countries with poorly
developed legal systems, or with cultures that very rarely use courts to resolve disputes
or award damages (although “liability systems” are not unknown to traditional societies,
where the tribal chief or the elders settle disputes and award damages) (Panayotou,
1994).

It should be noted that economic instruments are not limited to local, regional,
and national problems. Due to spill over effects of environmental problems, unilateral
policies can be rendered useless.

As in the case of local environmental problems, the cost of controlling global
pollutants or conserving resources of global significance varies significantly among
countries, as does people's willingness to pay for accomplishing global environmental
objectives. The demand for global environmental policy comes mainly from the
developed countries which have sufficiently high incomes and low discount rates to be
concerned with environmental amenities and distant threats to their lifestyles. The lowest cost supply comes mainly from developing countries either by virtue of their greater biodiversity, lower energy efficiency, or lower opportunity costs. Under these circumstances, equal or proportional reduction in DLD by all countries would be excessively costly, if not totally unacceptable to developing countries. Economic instruments could be used as vehicles for the internalization of global environmental benefits to developing countries: in terms of efficiency, the cost of a given global environmental improvement would be minimized (cost-effectiveness); in terms of distribution, the wealthy beneficiaries would pay and the poor countries would benefit (equity) along the lines of the "beneficiary pays principle."

In the absence of a global government with taxation power, developed countries' willingness to pay for conservation could be captured through trading arrangements between developed and developing countries. Developing countries need financial resources and efficient technology to pursue sustainable development; in exchange, they can offer environmental conservation.

International agreements are only stable if no participant has any self-interest to break out. Spillovers and missing property rights at the international level create strong incentives for free riding, although it is well known that a full cooperative solution increases global welfare. The problem is there is no third party which can enforce cooperation at the global level. Therefore, i) agreements need to be signed voluntarily, ii) the parties must agree on the design of an agreement by consensus, and iii) the enforcement of the treaty must be conducted by the parties themselves (see Finus, 2000).

### d) Private mechanisms (self-regulation)

It is often realized by producers that sustainable resource utilization has positive benefits. Often, producers are forced by circumstances to harvest environmental resources at a rate higher than can be sustained. In order to reduce the pressure on resources, alternative means of earning a living must be provided.

This can be done through indirect service incentives, for example, rural development projects that make use of native biological diversity, demonstrate significant uses of natural resources, and provide local benefits. Also, launching a cooperation network brings advantages due to cost-sharing on installation of land improvements and information searches. There are further soft instruments which involve various types of agreements. Such auto-mechanisms aim to induce socially responsible behaviour, and operate therefore at the local level. Biodiversity spots, such as those in protected areas can be better managed in terms of funding when they include activity of adjacent villages and territories. But it can be difficult to address the proper authority, as customary and modern powers are very much interrelated. NGOs can mainstream at a more integrated level in many forms. Decentralized cooperation may enhance local knowledge management and capacities. M&A is also needed through scientific and universitarian exchanges and training.

Establishing special markets for goods from sustainable production on a national level could be a further incentive to achieving environmental protection (among other goals) more efficiently. If consumers are willing to pay full-cost pricing, producers are
encouraged to produce sustainably. In this context, a market for eco-tourism could also
be established.

e) Micro-credits

Within dryland areas, very poor families often depend more on the natural resources than higher-income households, as they have fewer options to sustain their livelihoods. Forests and other natural resources can provide opportunities in drylands for income generation, value addition and enterprise development. These activities can contribute significantly to household incomes if targeted to special needs areas and supported through micro-credit schemes. Credit and grant schemes can go a long way to promoting local livelihoods, but in reality entrepreneurship is not widespread, and many households remain extremely risk averse.

Small credit schemes will be instrumental to promoting the participation of women, the poor and marginalized groups in green enterprise development initiatives. All these interventions depend upon building capacities of poor people, particularly women and marginalized groups, to influence decision-making processes that enable them to access natural resources and value-added activities by exercising management and use rights.

In the agricultural sector, subsidies for reduced-impact land and resource use have some potential, such as sustainable agriculture on already cultivated lands or alternative income generation. Direct incentives for land conservation effects that are practiced in countries such as the USA and Australia, such as land purchases, leases, and easements, as well as financial incentives such as performance payments and tax relief, would be potential instruments in drylands. For instance, the U.S. government spends a significant amount of money to induce farmers to protect land from degradation. Similarly, TNC also executes conservation initiatives through land purchases and easements. However, valuing environmental benefits and costs, developing positive economic incentives for combating desertification and investing in land conservation and management, and removing or reforming so-called "perverse" incentives that result in the loss of biological diversity, should be an integral part of subsidy mechanisms in rural areas. Measures like environmental maintenance and freeing of funds to be used for a variety of initiatives for sustainable growth, poverty alleviation and natural resource conservation are a few crucial mechanisms in dryland areas.

Moral suasion

Moral suasion is an attempt to influence preferences of individuals in such a way that social consequences of private decisions are considered. Ethical behaviour should be changed to the point where nature and ecological problems are considered when making market/production decisions. Since economic success is a central element to free-market systems, we cannot solely rely on firms to consider all effects of their decisions. Implementation will involve instruction, education, and clarification of facts regarding DLD, supplemented by technical and financial assistance to all concerned producers.
### 3.6. Valuation of actions to combat DLD and to promote international investments

It is necessary to measure the success of action to combat DLD (for donors, NGOs, etc.) to determine and use the most efficient context-specific techniques. Obviously, these need to be linked with the M&A and KM issues (collective actions, territorial development, decentralization, capacity building for decision-making). As has already been discussed, in order to correctly value the benefits, it is necessary to not only supply production (in terms of ES), but also environmental services. The crucial question is then how to give them a contextual value. The constraints of social systems and the weak rates of adoption of such techniques should be taken into account. Further problems include high rates for moderate DLD, low rates when it comes to prevention, and very low rates for degraded land (because of high investment).

Most development projects focus on the *ex ante* return of action plans they put forward. The calculation of this return serves both for planning the project and for justifying its implementation by announcing significant returns and benefits for local populations. However, the results effectively obtained by these projects generally differ from those announced. This is because their implementation in fact depends on local, national or international contexts which are difficult to accurately predict.

Therefore, what is of interested is the economic rate of return (ERR) *ex-post* of anti-desertification projects, a rate which indicates the effective success of the project or profitability of the investment made. The calculation of ERR is strongly dependant on the M&A used of actions to combat DLD. The reference for this work is that of Reij and Steeds (2003), who evaluated several anti-desertification projects in dry African regions, especially in the Sahel.<fnref n="34" /> These projects were financed and implemented by joint international programmes, African governments and the populations who benefited from them.

The evaluation of ERR consists of comparing an initial situation (or a situation with no project) with the situation with the project. A study of the profitability is generally limited to local benefits generated and more precisely to the measurable aspects of the benefits, in other words, mainly to variations in crop yields or to that of wood production in the case of reforestation operations. These volumes are then multiplied by the corresponding prices. Finally, the economic valorisation of gains obtained is related to the cost of the projects.

It is important to emphasise that the duration of projects is an essential criterion for the validity of valuation operations. Moreover, it is difficult to calculate the benefits of a short-term project since the productivity variations of land in dry regions depend firstly on variations in rainfall; a short-term survey is thus not sufficient for distinguishing the effects of a project in the fight against DLD from the climatic context in which it is carried out. Furthermore, the response of the natural environment to rehabilitation techniques is only optimal after several years, perhaps even as much as a decade later. Even if rural producers observe positive effects immediately from the first years, all of the benefits resulting from ecological improvements on the scale of an ecosystem can only be measured in the medium and long term. Evaluations of projects over three to five years will thus only take into account the smallest proportion of potential return. These positive

<footnote n="34">³⁴ The studies of Reij and Steeds (2003) were of 12 agricultural development projects and the anti-erosion fight in dry African regions whose rainfall was between 200 and 800 mm per year.</footnote>
ERRs appear in fact to depend on the social and institutional conditions governing the implementation of these projects.

**Box 22. Benefits of Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) Techniques for Rural Development, Central Plateau of Burkina Faso**

Between 1975 and 1985, 25% of the population of the central region of Burkina Faso, which was the most degraded and the most densely populated (100 inhabitants/km²), migrated towards the more humid areas. Consequently, agricultural yields dropped to 400-500 kg per ha and the level of water tables dropped. Beginning in 1986, three projects for environmental rehabilitation and agricultural intensification over a period of 10-15 years enabled the improvement of 101,000 ha, i.e. 35-40% of the cultivated areas of 7 provinces. The projects were based on village groups which represented 30% of the target population (i.e. 120,000 people).

*Strong points:*

In villages which have a lot of experience of these techniques:

* There was a noteworthy reduction in poverty and improvement of food security;

* The reduction in the rural exodus was due to an increase in yields of 50% and a reduction of areas cultivated per person;

* Production surpluses provided supplementary income which was sometimes invested in livestock;

* Better integration of agricultural and livestock activities and diversification of production systems occurred: reappearance of some commercial crops and cash crops (cowpea and sesame);

* The development of collateral sources of income: labour market for digging planting pits (zaï), the organic manure market and rental of transport equipment. These new activities helped increase agricultural income by 25-30%;

* The increase in the income of women who benefit from the conservation of soil and water; a reduction in the time they spend on daily chores (fetching water and gathering wood) following the replenishment of water tables and reforestation;

* The constitution of an elite peasantry class;

* Among the criteria for success was the remaking of the main roads which enabled an extension of trading activities; in villages in which methods for conserving water and soils were not applied, the trends to improvement either did not occur at all or only occurred slightly.

*Weak points:*

The SWC developments required collective choices and organisation, in particular because they had to be implemented on the scale of the watershed.

* Degradation of collective areas continued, the techniques were not widely adopted, and sometimes the installations were not maintained;

* The projects were based on a participatory approach by means of groups of producers, which had often existed for more than a generation;

* The representativeness of these groups is an issue as the participatory approach does not prevent the marginalisation of some groups;

* Socio-economic disparities increased, leading to the exclusion and increasing poverty of those who were not able to maintain the developments (costs of initial establishment and lack of adequate labour) on the one hand, and enriching of the beneficiaries on the other.
The successful implementation of anti-DLD techniques thus requires a more integrated vision of local development. The calculation of the rate of return of such projects could take into account the benefits related to the reduction or absence of conflicts over resources. Specific investments in the implementation of consensus-building approaches (KM) for the management of resources have helped contribute to the successful implementation of anti-DLD techniques.<fnref n="35" /> Only then can the benefits which are used as a basis for calculating the ERR of anti-DLD projects be significantly increased (Table 5).

<table><caption>**Table 5.** An exhaustive basis for calculating the ERR of anti-DLD projects.</caption><thead><tr><th>Types of Benefits</th><th>Indicators</th><th>Possible Measurements</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>LOCAL</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Increase of available agricultural products</td><td>Variation in agricultural production</td><td>Variations in yields in local/ global prices</td></tr><tr><td>Increase of available fodder and livestock capacity</td><td>Variation in livestock production</td><td>- Variations in livestock carrying capacity<br/>- Variations in fodder yields in local/global prices of reference fodder</td></tr><tr><td>Reforestation</td><td>Variation in forest cover</td><td>Variations in volumes of wood and non-ligneous products in local/global prices</td></tr><tr><td>Increase in available water</td><td>Replenishment of water tables</td><td>- Variation in water carrying time, average cost of labour<br/>- Volume, value of water recovered</td></tr><tr><td>Management of natural resources*</td><td>Decrease of conflicts</td><td>Reduction in number of conflicts observed, mean cost for settlement of conflicts</td></tr><tr><td>Stabilising of the population*</td><td>Decrease in rural exodus</td><td>Opportunity cost: cost of connecting drinking water in the city (in relation to the number of beneficiaries)</td></tr><tr><td>Recovery of biodiversity*</td><td>Species recovered in private gardens</td><td>Surface areas or amounts concerned in local/global prices of species recovered</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3"><strong>GLOBAL</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Adaptation to climate change*</td><td>Storage of carbon</td><td>Quantities of carbon stored at market price of carbon</td></tr><tr><td>Recovery of biodiversity*</td><td>Modification of ecosystems</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="35">³⁵ The reservations expressed take into account that the legal context of the country does not recognise the local institutions managing natural resources and the local development implemented by the projects.</footnote>
<table><tr><td></td><td>and landscapes</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Recovery of soil fertility*</td><td>Variation of vegetation: better water infiltration, increase in fertility. Decrease in albedo</td><td></td></tr></table>

Generally speaking, the social and environmental benefits are never or hardly ever taken into account when calculating the figures for projects. However, it appears to be fairly easy to determine three types of benefits, including:

* reducing the number of conflicts over natural resources;

* storing carbon once the average rates of storage are known;

* stabilising populations even though the opportunity costs method may be criticised.<fnref n="36" />

While investments in the fight against DLD produce effects which are objectively advantageous for societies and for the environment, that fact that rural populations in the regions affected do not invest more spontaneously and systematically requires a deeper understanding of the driving factors at the household level. It is possible that the delay in return on anti-DLD investments can be too long given the low financial margins of most of the local producers, and that the social and opportunity costs for implementing such techniques are too high. Research often lacks information on these social and opportunity costs. Filling in these gaps in knowledge could help to understand why the adoption of soil and water conservation practices remains low, and may help to design improved local actions.

## 3.7. Recommendations and Conclusions

This chapter focused on the economics of DLD, the potential applications of environmental valuation techniques and other instruments to address issues related to SLM. It explains the need for economic valuation in decision-making processes and touches upon the causes and effects of the undervaluation of land-based ecosystem services with an argument that information on the economic value of DLD is a prerequisite for M&A. Identifying and evaluating potential economic instruments in the assessment of DLD is important to encourage the sustainable use of land resources. However, one has to be careful with the implementation of incentives and mechanisms. The question of which one is effective, economically reasonable and efficient may depend upon different national, regional and social conditions. Typical criteria for evaluating instruments which should be included are: efficiency, environmental quality improvement, information availability, actual or perceived transaction costs, practicality, time lag, etc. Furthermore, different types of incentives have sometimes quite different time horizons in terms of their effectiveness.

A main cause of the lack of land-related non-market benefits is the omission of exclusive property rights. Institutions and property rights are important as their absence contributes to market or resource management failures and raises the costs of

<footnote>* Indicates benefits which have rarely been quantified to date by anti-DLD projects.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶ According to the French media during the International Year of Deserts and Desertification (2006), civil society of Northern countries would classify the importance of impacts of the fight against desertification firstly by themes related to climate change and secondly to migration.</footnote>
externalities. National policies to combat DLD often do not take into account externalities; for example, greenhouse effects and shared social costs extend across regional and national boundaries, and therefore funding models need to be driven by international agreements. International organizations, such as the World Bank, UN, Regional Banks, or private organizations, such as the Fulbright or Gates Foundation, are probably the obvious choices to cover many of the costs of M&A on a long-term basis.

The multifaceted complexity of the DLD process necessitates a better understanding of mechanisms of assessment that extend beyond satellite sensor technology. While DLD and its effects are often detected over extended areas at sub-continental scales through the use of space technology, the full effects are primarily the product of land user decisions at a very local scale. Hence, regional and national development plans, including the funding procedures for M&A, are best managed and implemented under international agreements which place emphasis on grassroots participation. Poor farmers with no access to credit are unlikely to share the social costs of DLD in pecuniary terms, but they can help a lot if they learn how to manage their resources more efficiently.

Finally, problems of land tenure and land access need to be addressed (c.f. case study made in 2004-2005 by OSS and the Global Mechanism supported by GEF related to land tenure in "North Africa and Africa Review Report on Drought and Desertification", Economic Commission for Africa, 2008, pp.6). It must be clarified to whom incentives are directed before designing the appropriate policy instruments.
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# Annex I. Scientific Bodies Needed to Support the UNCCD

**Annex Contributing Authors and Editors:** M. Akhtar-Schuster, H. Bigas, P. Chasek, A. Lago, J. Lehmann, P. Machado, D. Ojima, G. Olukoye, L. Stringer, R. Thomas, and S. Twomlow.

**Annex Coordinating Editors:** P. Chasek, M. Akhtar-Schuster and R. Thomas.

## 1. Key Recommendation(s)

The DSD recommends two types of bodies relevant to and in support of but independent from the UNCCD:

i) An international **science panel or body** to develop global consensus on desertification and land degradation by assessing the ever-evolving knowledge base of land science.

ii) A **scientific research networking process or body** comprised of linked networks of scientists that strategizes, coordinates, catalyzes, and stimulates a global scientific research community relevant to the goals of the UNCCD.

## 2. Introduction

### 2.1. Rationale for Scientific Bodies Needed in Support of the UNCCD

The UNCCD is a holistic Convention dedicated to alleviating a large and diverse set of problems that are interconnected in complex ways, ranging from soil degradation to poverty, landscape damage, and coping with threats posed by natural disasters (e.g., droughts and climate shifts).

As a result of this complexity, assessment of the current state of scientific knowledge is very challenging as hundreds if not thousands of scientists and organizations are conducting DLD research but largely in isolation. Identifying, assessing and synthesizing these often-isolated efforts through geographically-balanced and representative analysis forms a daunting challenge. This annex to the DSD Working Group 3 White Paper reviews the current status of scientific input into the Convention, and how some of the shortcomings of this process might be overcome. It builds on the discussion on horizontal international knowledge management in Chapter 2.5.

### 2.2. Current Format of Scientific Input into the UNCCD

In the existing institutional architecture of the UNCCD, scientific and technological input has been predominantly channelled to the Conference of Parties (COP) through its subsidiary Committee on Science and Technology (CST), through ad-hoc consultancies
and task forces, and a Roster of Independent Experts, nominated by the Parties, following provisions in Article 24 of the Convention. The Roster of Independent Experts is not confined to scientists but also includes practitioners with experience in addressing desertification, as nominated by their governments. Likewise, the membership of the CST is multidisciplinary and, in principle, open to all Parties.

While this permits inclusiveness, there are considerable trade-offs. The large and diverse membership of the CST renders it rather unwieldy: it leads to discontinuities in the representatives attending each meeting and triggers arbitrary debates rather than focused and meaningful exchanges on specific issues. Discussions are typically dominated by government representatives, many of whom lack the training or expertise to engage in substantive debates on the scientific underpinnings of desertification. For example, Parties have repeatedly requested scientific advice on the development of benchmarks and indicators – a concern that is essential to maintaining legitimacy, encouraging compliance and monitoring progress towards effective implementation of the Convention. However, Committee sessions are often marred by procedural quarrels rather than facilitating substantive deliberations on such issues. Hence, CST meetings often yield low-profile, non-authoritative outputs with little relevance for either the COP or the scientific community (Bauer and Stringer, 2009).

In short, the UNCCD process lacks an efficient operational mechanism to process and channel practical and scientific expertise for political decision-makers. The COP fails to tap the information potentially available from the scientific community, which in turn is unable to draw the attention of the Parties to the scientific aspects of the issues on their agenda. Accordingly, there have been calls for the provision of independent scientific policy advisory services from outside the immediate UNCCD process, referring to the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) vis-à-vis the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a promising model (Bauer and Stringer, 2009).

## 2.3. The Need for Two Types of Scientific Bodies in Support of the UNCCD

A body to assess the global body of scientific knowledge related to DLD is needed to better inform the UNCCD COP so that those Parties can form policies based on the well-substantiated knowledge. The value delivered by such scientific assessment has been demonstrated convincingly by the IPCC.

Leemans (2008) reported that, over the last few decades, many regional and global scientific assessments have been completed and published: The Assessment of Ozone Depletion, the CLRTAP and EMEP assessments for air pollution in Europe, the various IPCC assessments, the Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA), the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). Most of these have been successful in translating scientific research and understanding into policy-relevant information.

All these assessments are critical evaluations of the state-of-the-art scientific understanding of complex environmental issues for purposes of guiding policy decisions. The topics of these assessments are typically defined by decision-makers.
Likewise, a scientific body that advises the UNCCD on matters of land degradation is urgently needed. This body should be independent and involve as many members as possible from the scientific community worldwide and from different disciplines to further develop methods and tools to advise the CST and, through it, the UNCCD.

The role of the scientific body should be to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information, on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, relevant to understanding the scientific basis of land degradation, its potential impacts and options for sustainable land management.

While this need is widely recognized (yet unfulfilled), and the IPCC has received much-deserved attention for its impacts, many are not aware that the IPCC builds its assessment on the basis of other major scientific bodies that coordinate the climate research of thousands of scientists and institutions into strategic frameworks. Yet the UNCCD has no comparable body aligned with its imperative. This is all the more important considering the great diversity and complexity of the topic that UNCCD addresses.

With this background, it is suggested that two types of bodies are needed:

i) A **science assessment body** to develop global consensus on the most valuable lessons emanating from the ever-evolving knowledge base of land science.

ii) A **scientific research body** comprised of linked networks of scientists that strategizes, networks, coordinates, catalyzes and stimulates a global scientific research community relevant to the needs of the UNCCD.

A "science assessment body" could also be defined as a think tank that creates a permanent interface to the policy level, while "a scientific research body" is a flexibly structured network of networks that invites relevant existing bodies to join it to create synergies in scientific action. The two bodies should be interacting and interlinked; they should not be seen as two entirely independent bodies, both for political and cost reasons. Thus, these are two interlinked systems that are policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive.

### 3. Scientific Assessment Bodies Supporting Sister Environmental Conventions

The integration of science and environmental policy-making at the intergovernmental level is a longstanding challenge for public agencies, with varying degrees of success. Most Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Conventions house scientific bodies that are subsidiary to their COPs. However, some Conventions interface with external scientific bodies. An examination of a few of the most relevant such bodies yields important lessons for the UNCCD. In addition, a realization has emerged that aspects of land degradation cut across the interests of the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and that these interconnections need to be addressed.
**3.1. Lessons from IPCC, Montreal Protocol Assessment Panels, MEA, and IMoSEB/IPBES**

**Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.** The IPCC is a scientific intergovernmental body established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. Its constituency is made of:

* Governments: the IPCC is open to all member countries of WMO and UNEP. Governments participate in plenary sessions of the IPCC where main decisions about the IPCC work programme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. They also participate in the review of IPCC Reports.

* Scientists: hundreds of scientists all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC as authors, contributors and reviewers.

* People: as a United Nations body, the IPCC work aims to promote the United Nations human development goals (IPCC 2009).

The IPCC is a scientific body: the information it provides with its reports is based on scientific evidence and reflects existing viewpoints within the scientific community. The comprehensiveness of the scientific content is achieved through contributions from experts in all regions of the world and all relevant disciplines including, where appropriately documented, industry literature and traditional practices, and a two-stage review process by experts and governments (IPCC 2009).

The IPCC is able to provide scientific, technical and socio-economic information in a policy-relevant but policy neutral way to decision-makers. When governments accept the IPCC reports and approve their Summary for Policymakers, they acknowledge the legitimacy of their scientific content (IPCC, 2009). The IPCC provides its reports at regular intervals and they immediately become standard works of reference, widely used by policymakers, experts and students. The IPCC has produced four assessment reports so far (1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007) and continues to be a major source of information for the negotiations under the UNFCCC (IPCC, 2009).

One of the many reasons that the IPCC succeeds at its task is that it predates and lies outside the UNFCCC process. So, while it is part of the UN system, it is separated from the political process of the UNFCCC, which allows it to work independently and involve scientists in a way that does not envelop them totally within the politics of the UNFCCC. This is not to say that the IPCC is apolitical, but since it is not a subsidiary body of the COP, it has a greater degree of independence.

**Montreal Protocol Assessment Panels.** A different model exists within the context of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Unlike the IPCC, the Montreal Protocol's Assessment Panels are subsidiary bodies of the Meeting of the Parties and have been the pillars of the ozone protection regime since the beginning of the implementation of the Montreal Protocol. Through provision of independent, technical and scientific assessments and information, the Panels have helped the Parties to reach informed decisions

UNEP, in its role as the Ozone Secretariat, initiated the assessment panel process in 1988 pursuant to Article 6 of the Montreal Protocol. Four panels, namely, Panels for Scientific, Environmental, Technology, and Economic Assessments were
established. Shortly after the Second Meeting of the Parties in 1990, the Panels for Technical Assessment and the Panel for Economic Assessment were merged into one Panel called the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (Ozone Secretariat, 2004).

In accordance with Article 6 of the Montreal Protocol and subsequent decisions of the Parties, the three panels carry out periodic assessments of the scientific issues of ozone depletion; environmental effects of ozone depletion; status of alternative substances and technologies as well as their economic implications. The first report was published in 1989 and since then major periodic assessments have been published in 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006. In addition, the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel produces a progress report every year to review the status of alternatives and technologies, and to address the various requests given to them by the Parties including evaluation of nominations for essential use exemptions for Annex A and B substances, and nominations for critical use exemptions for methyl bromide (Ozone Secretariat, 2004).

**Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.** The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) represents another model of an external assessment body whose report was endorsed by the COPs of the CBD and the UNCCD and the Standing Committee of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. In the late 1990s, scientist acknowledged that although major advances had been made in ecological sciences, resource economics and other fields during the 1980s and 1990s, these new findings appeared to be poorly reflected in policy discussions concerning ecosystems, especially in contrast with the effective assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Recognizing this shortcoming, a panel of 40 leading scientists drafted an international assessment – "Protecting our Planet, Securing our Future: Linkages among Global Environmental Issues and Human Needs". The study, published in November 1998 by UNEP, NASA, and the World Bank, called for "a more integrative assessment process for selected scientific issues, a process that can highlight the linkages between questions relevant to climate, biodiversity, desertification, and forest issues." (MA, 2005).

Between 1999 and 2000, the Steering Committee finalized the basic organizational and financial arrangements for the MA and submitted the proposal to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UN Foundation and other donors. The World Resources Institute served as the interim secretariat. The MA was formally initiated in 2001 with the objective of assessing the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and the scientific basis for action needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of those ecosystems and their contribution to human well-being. The MA involved the work of more than 1,360 experts worldwide. Their findings, contained in five technical volumes and six synthesis reports, provide a state-of-the-art scientific appraisal of the condition and trends in the world's ecosystems and the services they provide (such as clean water, food, forest products, flood control, and natural resources) and the options to restore, conserve or enhance the sustainable use of ecosystems (MA, 2005).

**IMoSEB and IPBES.** Within the CBD process, the proposed Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is under discussion. This is a result of the IMoSEB process (International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity) and the follow up to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. At the Paris Conference "Biodiversity: Science and Governance" in January 2005, former French
President Jacques Chirac called on the scientific community to take action to develop an International Mechanism of Scientific expertise on Biodiversity in order to significantly reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 and also to support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). President Chirac also appealed to the governments to support this mechanism. This was the starting point of the consultative process towards an *International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity* (IMoSEB).

Immediately after the “Chirac Conference”, an international consultation was initiated to (i) assess the need and options to strengthen the Science/Policy Interface, (ii) assess existing structures and (iii) elicit possible structures of an International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity (IMoSEB). A one-year consultation process with six regional meetings (Oceania, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, North America) was initiated which involved participants from the international scientific community, policy and private sectors and the media. At these regional meetings, the following options for structures were discussed:

i) Form a partnership with existing mechanisms.

ii) Create a new mechanism, modelled loosely on the IPCC.

iii) Invite IPCC to consider developing a biodiversity aspect in their activity.

iv) Strengthen existing networks of independent scientists.

A final statement at the IMoSEB International Steering Committee (15-17 November 2007 in Montpellier, France) concluded the following needs, which were expressed at the different regional meetings:

* Need for independent, proactive and credible scientific expertise: “be policy relevant without being policy prescriptive”.

* Need for more capacity building: e.g., for biodiversity-related emergencies.

* Better coordinated and more operational monitoring and assessments of drivers, pressures, state of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

* Need for improved communication: within the scientific community, with other stakeholders (e.g., between scientists, policy makers, civil society, including local and indigenous communities).

* Support cutting-edge science: identify thematic priorities and gaps that consider decision-makers' concerns.

* Conceptual framework: “network of networks”.

* Search for ways to mobilize public and private resources for inter-disciplinary scientific research and monitoring which are necessary to understanding the cost of conserving biodiversity.

At a Side Event at CBD COP9 (May 2008, Bonn, Germany), it was officially announced that the IMoSEB will merge with the follow-up activities of the MA that will fall under the umbrella of UNEP. In Malaysia in November 2008¹, participants discussed how the proposed IPBES could provide scientific support to national governments, MEAs and others concerned with the consequences of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change.<fnref n="2" /> At the UNEP Governing Council meeting in February 2009, UNEP passed decision 25/10³, calling for a second meeting to continue this process; this was held in

<footnote n="1">¹ See http://www.ipbes.net/en/adHoc_intgvmntlMulti_stakeholderMeeting.aspx.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² See the IPBES concept note at http://www.ipbes.net/Documents/ConceptNote_en.pdf.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ See http://www.ipbes.net/Documents/UNEP_GC_25_10_IPBESADVANCE.pdf.</footnote>
October 2009. At that meeting, strong support was expressed for a new intergovernmental mechanism to strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services, provided that it did not duplicate or substitute the mandates or programmes of work of existing Multilateral Environmental Agreements or mechanisms, where the strengthening of existing mechanisms was inadequate. Most participants endorsed the importance of ensuring the scientific independence of the new intergovernmental mechanism by having its governance structure separate from, but responsive to, the governance structure of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and United Nations bodies.<fnref n="4" />

Institutionally, while the CBD is a UNEP convention, both the MA and the IMoSEB process took place outside of the CBD; the proposed IPBES is also outside the CBD political process.

Valuable lessons can be discerned from these examples:

i) While the IPCC structure may work for climate change, it is not the only effective structure and it may not be as effective for all topics.

ii) Despite the efforts of over 1000 scientists in the MA, the findings were not effectively incorporated within the political bodies of the CBD and UNCCD COPs, because, unlike the IPCC, it did not produce a summary for policymakers.

iii) Neither the IPCC nor the MA conducted original research; instead, they synthesized the findings of existing research.

iv) With the exception of the Montreal Protocol, most of these scientific initiatives were proposed outside the context of the relevant Convention(s) and were later endorsed by the Conventions.

## 3.2. Previous Recommendations Concerning a Scientific Assessment Body to Assist the UNCCD

There have already been initiatives to create a scientific assessment body to assist the UNCCD. At its third meeting in 2001, the International Conference on Land Degradation (ICLD3, 2002), promoted by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the Working Group on Land Degradation and Desertification, and the Subcommission of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), supported the formation of an International Panel on Land and Soil (IPLS). This was later presented at the side event at UNCCD COP5 on 4 October 2001, in Geneva, Switzerland. Watson (2005), discussing the key issues in the science-policy interface, reported that care should be given to link the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity to the MDGs and issues of immediate concern to policy-makers, such as the economy, security and human health. Considering the interlinkages between biodiversity, desertification, and sustainable land management, a scientific body to assist the UNCCD should apparently not be different.

Others have supported the proposal for an **International or Intergovernmental Panel on Land Degradation**. Vlek (2005) called for an International Panel on Land Degradation to “assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, the scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information relevant to understanding the

<footnote n="4">⁴ See http://ipbes.net/Documents/UNEP_IPBES_2.4_Rev1_en.pdf.</footnote>
scientific basis of risk of human induced land degradation, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation." As proposed by Vlek (2005), this would be a joint panel of the United Nations University (UNU) and UNEP. Like the IPCC, it would not carry out research or monitor land and soil related data or other related parameters, but would base its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature.

There have been proposals for the IPCC to serve as a broader scientific body for the UNCCD, the CBD and other Conventions. However, not all Parties support this idea because they believe climate change will receive the major emphasis, and the biodiversity and land degradation issues might be treated with less importance than is merited.

In addition, there have been proposals for the IPBES to serve as an independent scientific body not only for the CBD, but for the UNCCD as well.

# 4. A Scientific Assessment Body in Support of the UNCCD

## 4.1. Key Attributes of an Effective Scientific Assessment Body in Support of the UNCCD

Given the lessons learned above, an effective scientific assessment body that will support the UNCCD must not only be international, but it must also receive *international support* from its inception. Scientists from all affected as well as donor countries need to voice support for such a body.

In preparation for the establishment of such a body, there should be a critical screening of all existing structures with support from the international community to finance a review and regional consultation process. The process of regional consultations should be conducted carefully and thoroughly, allowing all relevant scientists to participate in the consultation process.

Similar to the IPCC, the process must lead to a significant degree of consensus, but this consensus does not necessarily have to be in complete agreement; specifically, it should be an agreement about what is known and what is not known, distinguishing clearly between those matters about which there is reasonable certainty and those where much uncertainty remains.

The new body or panel should be an international and independent scientific platform that will support, but not compete with, the CST (Figure 1).

Like the IPCC, it would not carry out its own research. It would base its assessments mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature (Vlek, 2005) including data from regional bodies that have responsibility for monitoring and assessing land degradation. In addition to publishing reports, the body should publish a summary for policymakers so that the results are presented in a format that is accessible to policymakers at the UNCCD and in national governments.

Membership should include representatives from regional and international scientific organizations that focus on desertification, land degradation, soil science,
drought, etc. Nominees would need to contribute effectively to the review of existing research and contribute to writing of reports. Since the regional organizations have the mandate for a particular region, they are better placed to recommend people who have the required technical expertise while at the same time can operate under a political umbrella for the region. The nominated regional experts should have insight into the UN-processes and into other relevant science-policy interactions.

Examples of regional organizations include, but are not limited to, AGRHYMET (the Agrometeorological and hydrometeorological programme), ACMAD (African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development), INSAH (Institut du Sahel), CILSS (Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel), ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), FARA (Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa), and CORAF (Conférence des responsables de la recherche agronomique africains et français). Other bodies, such as the newly emerged Association of DesertNet International etc., can also co-opt members to join this science body.

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Proposal for the establishment of an independent, international, interdisciplinary scientific body on monitoring and assessment of desertification and land degradation.</figcaption></figure>
Thus, a science assessment body to assist the UNCCD should be comprised of internationally renowned and experienced scientists who share collaborative and integrative approaches to problem-solving. The presence of development professionals with real-world experience in relevant ecosystems and cultures would be of significant benefit to the science body. Broadly knowledgeable and experienced individuals can be more effective than narrowly-focused scientists with less integrative experiences. A science body will always have the option of seeking very specific technical advice from outside sources. Specific skill sets that should be considered for inclusion in the science body are:

* Biophysical: geology, soils, hydrology, fluvial geology, remote sensing, spatial ecology, global change ecologists.

* Socio-economic (classical and ecological): economists, sociologists, anthropologists and/or political scientists that deal with culture, decision-making processes, and policy.

* Management and rehabilitation of arid ecosystems: rangeland scientists, ecological restoration.

* Data assimilation: collection and development of novel and appropriate statistical approaches to compare disparate data collected in different ways and for different purposes.

The ideal format of a science body is often achieved after thorough debate. For example, the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the CBD has become the centre of heated debates concerning its function as the science-policy interface of the Convention. As the quality of SBSTTA's work depends primarily on the processes that guide the discussions during its meetings and on the material on which these discussions are based, Koetz et al., (2008) suggest that SBSTTA (i) improve its scientific foundation by systematically strengthening its relations to more scientific institutions outside the formal CBD regime, and (ii) focus on providing a more substantive political debate to resolve alternative policy choices during its meetings.

Scientific interchanges on the inter-connecting topics must be open, transparent, representative and legitimate. The results and analysis need to be policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive, providing options, not recommendations. Plausible scenarios for the future should be relevant for policy-formulation over a range of spatial scales, from local to regional and global. The conclusions must be evidence-based and not value-laden, and finally, must cover risk assessment, management and communication.

Scientific assessments produced by bodies need to involve and reach out to all key decision-makers within governments, not just the environment ministries which are often one of the least powerful ministries (Watson, 2005), including the finance, energy, transportation, and agriculture ministries. To illustrate what types of information may be policy-relevant, Watson (2005) uses the example of the MDG Task Force on Environmental Sustainability which addresses a number of key environmental issues. Similar questions posed by the Task Force for each environmental issue could be used for the proposed assessment body:

* What is the problem (e.g., desertification, land degradation, rehabilitation of degraded lands)?
* What is the impact of the environmental problem on the other MDGs (e.g., how does desertification, land degradation affect poverty and hunger)?

* What are the major drivers of desertification and land degradation globally and regionally?

* What needs to happen at the local and global levels to address the environmental issue?

* What actions are needed to avoid land degradation and what actions are relevant for national governments, local governments, the private sector, NGOs, foundations, etc.?

* What are the costs of action and inaction?

Watson (2005) also suggests some characteristics for a scientific assessment, including the following key recommendations:

* It must be demand driven, and involve experts from all relevant stakeholder groups in scoping, preparation, peer-review and outreach/communication.

* The process must be open, transparent, representative and legitimate.

* Plausible scenarios of the future should be relevant for policy-formulation over a range of spatial scales from local to regional and global.

* The conclusions must be evidence-based and not value-laden, i.e., they must be devoid of ideological concepts and value systems.

* It must cover risk assessment, management and communication.

* It must present different points of view, and whenever possible quantify the uncertainties involved.

Although the science should be the basis of the science–policy interface for UNCCD, the assessment body should produce drafts in close collaboration with policymakers, but it should be the assessment body that has the final say on the contents of the reports. This would avoid instances where policy makers have a final say on the scientific report, one of the criticisms levelled against the IPCC. For instance, in a debate of December 1995 on the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers, the British scientist Keith Shine, one of the IPCC's lead authors, was quoted as saying "We produce a draft, and then the policymakers go through it line by line and change the way it is presented.... It's peculiar that they have the final say in what goes into a scientists' report". In a nutshell, the scientific assessment body to support the UNCCD should, as much as possible, be devoid of political interference in order for its assessments and reports to remain relevant, accurate, timely and credible.

## 4.2. Issues of Scientific Independence and Policy Relevance

The assessment body should be independent of the UNCCD for reasons of credibility and openness. Ideally, as mentioned above, it should be housed in another international organization and be composed of scientists nominated by national governments and regional organizations, not by the UNCCD COP or CST. While there are members of the IPCC who are government-appointed scientists, they are still independent of the UNFCCC and this should also be the case for any new scientific body on land degradation. Based on international consultations and the discussions at the UNCCD First Scientific Conference in Buenos Aires in September 2009, an e-forum is currently being established by the Association of DesertNet International and UNU-INWEH to
further facilitate scientific discussions and details on the needs and options of an
international and independent scientific panel on land degradation and desertification. As
agreed with the CST Secretariat, the results of this international e-consultation will
provide input to the CST Secretariat to support the follow-up of the conference results to
the CST SS-2 in 2010 which will be making recommendations to COP10.

The UNCCD may want to consider the IPBES's emerging principles, whose key
operating principles stipulate that it shall be (UNEP/IPBES/1/4):

i) Inclusive of intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and built upon existing networks of scientists and knowledge-holders;

ii) Scientifically independent, credible and subject to critical expert peer review as appropriate;

iii) Responsive to policy needs as identified by decision-making organizations at multiple levels, including biodiversity and ecosystems-related Multilateral Environmental Agreements and relevant intergovernmental bodies, by being legitimate and policy-relevant without being policy-prescriptive;

iv) Underpinned by experiences of relevant assessment processes; and

v) Monitored from the outset with procedures for measuring its effectiveness.

4.3. Possible Structural Elements for a Scientific Assessment Body

The structure of the proposed scientific assessment body should be lean, comprising
members chosen with due regard to the principles of equitable geographical distribution
and gender and discipline balance, and should have clear terms of reference. A four or
five-year cycle approach could be undertaken for the implementation of its work
programme. This will enable stakeholders to evaluate and monitor the platform's
progress, performance and success. Specific activities to be undertaken in each work
cycle will be determined in plenary. It is proposed that participants draw up a set of
recommendations to be presented to the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum for its consideration, or other similar body willing to take on this
responsibility.

Vlek (2005) recommended one type of structure. He proposed that such a body
could be composed of three working groups and a task force. Somewhat parallel to the
IPCC division of labour, Working Group I would assess the scientific aspects of the soil
and land system in relation to land use and global environmental change. Working
Group II would assess the vulnerability of socio-economic, food and natural systems to
land degradation, consequences of land degradation and options for adapting to it.
Working Group III would assess options for limiting land degradation and regulating land
cover change.

According to Vlek (2005), the body would meet in plenary sessions once a year to adopt reports, determine mandates and workplans for the Working Groups. Its Bureau would meet two to three times per year to assist the body's chair in planning, coordinating and monitoring progress.
In addition, strong coordination between the UNCCD scientific assessment body and the IPCC could be developed and maintained. Key elements of the assessment could be organized along the lines of:

* Current and future trends in factors contributing to desertification and land degradation;

* Impacts, vulnerability, and responses to desertification and land degradation; and

* Strategies to counteract desertification and land degradation.

This assessment could be conducted by the scientific community every 4-5 years, and would utilize the available science that is available by that time.

Alternatively, assessments could be done by national and regional bodies who would feed this information into the proposed scientific research body and the UNCCD. These national and regional bodies might also be extremely relevant for mainstreaming their findings in their national and regional policies, and as such, could be tasked with a more pronounced role in the proposed scientific assessment body.

## 4.4. Scope of Work of the Scientific Assessment Body

Below, the IPCC provides a good example of how the UNCCD scientific assessment body should create a clear and concise statement of what it will and will not do:

> "The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio-economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage."

## 4.5. Activities of the Scientific Assessment Body

A main activity of the scientific assessment body would be to provide an assessment of the state of knowledge on land degradation and desertification at regular intervals. The body could also prepare Special Reports and Technical Papers on topics where independent scientific information and advice is deemed necessary and where it could support the work of the UNCCD and, perhaps, other MEAs or UN bodies. It would support the UN through its work on methodologies for National Land Resources Inventories (Vlek 2005).

This body may also serve to improve communication between international, regional and national research and scientific institutions that would facilitate the flow of scientific information into the UNCCD implementation process.