Regional Training Underway to Promote Investments in Sustainable Land Management
02/03/2009
Because of its global importance to livelihoods and the environment – from ensuring food security to reducing carbon emissions – sustainable land management (SLM) is being paid increasing due attention by governments and their development partners. However, financing for SLM activities remains a challenge as governments struggle to improve many sectors with insufficient resources.
The Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (GM-UNCCD) and the FAO Investment Centre have therefore begun organizing and carrying out a series of regional training workshops on: “Designing Integrated Financing Strategies (DIFS) for the implementation of the UNCCD”.
DIFS is a capacity building initiative to strengthen national competencies for resource mobilization to boost investment in SLM as a base for improving rural livelihoods and food security, and for preventing further damage to the environment. The strategy is a guiding framework to help governments improve their policy and legal advice, inter-institutional coordination and institutional efficiency, and international and national resource mobilization using a wide variety of financial mechanisms.
To help launch the DIFS process, the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica, hosted the first Central American Workshop from 29 September to 3 October 2008 for five countries: Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Honduras, with representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Finance and Planning. A second workshop with other countries in the region (Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama) was held in Michoacán, Mexico from 13 to 17 October 2008 with the joint support of the Federal and Michoacán State Governments.
Based on the encouraging success of, and lessons learned from these two workshops, the 2009 Training Programme will address the needs of other regional communities such as the Mercosur, the Caribbean and the African Lusophone countries. The DIFS approach is being integrated by development partners into their SLM programmes and the workshops will be coordinated accordingly. Formal agreements have been reached already with the UN Development Programme through the Global Environment Facility-funded Project on Capacity Building and Mainstreaming of SLM for Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean, and with the Secretariat of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries through the FAO/Portuguese Institute for Development Support South-South Cooperation project for African Lusophone countries, funded by FAO’s Technical Cooperation Programme, which the Investment Centre is managing as the Lead Technical Unit.
The Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (GM-UNCCD) and the FAO Investment Centre have therefore begun organizing and carrying out a series of regional training workshops on: “Designing Integrated Financing Strategies (DIFS) for the implementation of the UNCCD”.
DIFS is a capacity building initiative to strengthen national competencies for resource mobilization to boost investment in SLM as a base for improving rural livelihoods and food security, and for preventing further damage to the environment. The strategy is a guiding framework to help governments improve their policy and legal advice, inter-institutional coordination and institutional efficiency, and international and national resource mobilization using a wide variety of financial mechanisms.
To help launch the DIFS process, the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica, hosted the first Central American Workshop from 29 September to 3 October 2008 for five countries: Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Honduras, with representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Finance and Planning. A second workshop with other countries in the region (Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama) was held in Michoacán, Mexico from 13 to 17 October 2008 with the joint support of the Federal and Michoacán State Governments.
Based on the encouraging success of, and lessons learned from these two workshops, the 2009 Training Programme will address the needs of other regional communities such as the Mercosur, the Caribbean and the African Lusophone countries. The DIFS approach is being integrated by development partners into their SLM programmes and the workshops will be coordinated accordingly. Formal agreements have been reached already with the UN Development Programme through the Global Environment Facility-funded Project on Capacity Building and Mainstreaming of SLM for Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean, and with the Secretariat of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries through the FAO/Portuguese Institute for Development Support South-South Cooperation project for African Lusophone countries, funded by FAO’s Technical Cooperation Programme, which the Investment Centre is managing as the Lead Technical Unit.