Newsletter de la Société Civile à la COP 14 UNCCD INDIA -6 september, 2019

1. 6 SEPTEMBER, 2019
ECO
PUBLISHED FOR 2019 UNCCD COP-14 CSO
NEWSLETTER
INTERVENTION BY CSO IN COW
An intervention on behalf of the CSOs was made in the
COW Plenary discussing droughts, land tenure, sand
and storms. The intervention talked about how a large
population of women in some countries don't have
land ownership, and it was stressed that Lands which
are not clearly protected by the law or not own by the
people are first ground for degradation.
"According to the UNCCD land degradation may force
up to 700 million people to migrate by 2050. But this is
not yet part of the documents. Are these numbers not
enough to open our eyes?"
The intervention called for the COW to trust the people
on the ground and provide more power to them. It
talked about how it was necessary to ensure that
dialogue between scientists, policy makers and
practitioners should be promoted as it is evident that
communnities can't depend on traditional weather
forecasting anymore. The parties were reminded of the
decision of the COP 13 to use, as appropriate, the
Drought Resilience, Adaptation and Management
Policy framework, in order to strengthen their capacity
to enhance drought preparedness and resilience.
Conclusively, A call for action was made which asked
the financial partners, CSOs and private sector to come
together and think beyond their own space, and walk
the talk.
PROTECTING THE OASIS
The Associative Network for Sustainable Development
of Oasis (RADDO) organised a side event about “Oasis
initiatives in Maghreb and good practices in
combating desertification: the case of the Gassom
and Devoasis projects”.
Members of civil society spoke out to highlight the
necessity of taking oasis ecosystems into account as
major concerns and actors in fight against
desertification based on local practices. It allowed to
get out the opportunity for oasis issues to be
addressed by two objectives of UNCDD 2018-2020
strategy:
1. Affected eco-systems and
2. Living conditions of populations.
Oasis initiative should be implemented with help
from Global Mechanism.
PEOPLE’S INVOLVEMENT: A PRIORITY
The RIO PAVILION's science day put forth a very
crucial viewpoint on the human dimensions of LDN
proposed by prof. Lindsay C. Stringer, Sustainability
Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment,
University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
She advocated that LDN is not just concerned with
managing the land but it also includes managing the
people, which is very necessary to achieve the LDN
target equitably. People and land, being integrated
socio-ecological system, demand a balanced
attention towards both the components to open up
options by moving towards good governance.

2. Avoiding, reducing and reversing degradation are
actions that people take and are about what we do to
the land. This in turn is defined by the structures and
processes we create and the ways we create
opportunities, options and choices. She highlighted
the need of institutions and economic and financial
measures that nudge people to manage land
sustainably rather than subsidizing the people that
gives them the incentives to degrade land for short
term benefits. Involving people from all strata will not
only give equity of sharing of
benefits and hearing of voices rather it would ensure
greater participation and help in uplifting the poorest
people who are eking out a living on degraded lands.
advocacy & legal actions on land tenure issues. She
advocated for legal and policy support in order to
recognize collective & customary tenure rights of
communities, territories and lands through recognition
and registration of Community Conserved Territories
and Areas (ICCAs) in dedicated national and
international registers.
In context of Land tenure in Latin America and the
Caribbean (LAC) region, Pablo Andrés Motta Delgado,
spoke of family farming and women’s involvement in
the same. Also, he supported the view of contributing
to the governance, management and the planning of
the use of the land in addition to VGGT in order to
avoid conflicts in land use.
The focus of African representation, Fatoumata Goundo
Sissoko, was on women’s participation in confiscated
land and absence of land titles.
Concluding the session Nathalie van Haren,
representing the Western Europe community gave the
CFS/FAOs Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible
Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in
the context of national food security.
CASE IN IRAQ
The major problem that Iraq faces is the
displacement of people due to the shifting of sand
dunes because of desertification. Al Aghsan
foundation for Agriculture and Environmental
Development is the only organization in Iraq which
has succeeded to rechange the concept of the local
people living near desert areas with this problem. Al
Aghsan has helped physically and materially to
cultivate 250 Hectares in the Salah al Din province to
stop the moving sands from shifting forward to the
green lands by growing 2.500.000 dry sticks along
the side of the moving sands banks in just 25 days in
cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture /
Department of Forestry and Combating
Desertification. This growth has led to the sand being
clamped down and it's erosion has permanently
stopped
OPEN DIALOGUE SESSION: Land tenure and
LDN
Each country has several characteristics and is guided
by its own set of rules on land tenure. Security in land
tenure regime in each country serves as motivation for
every country ensuring food security, gender equality,
eliminating poverty, overcoming land degradation
and attaining land security.
therefore, CSOs voluntarily agreed to lay down
guidelines to establish links on attaining land
degradation neutrality. Leading this objective Octavio
Perez Pardo, moderator for the panel of different
regional representatives unvieled the open dialogue
session.
The representative from Eastern Europe, Valentin
Ciubotaru was the first and discussed about the
National Engagement Strategy(NES) as a tool for
people centered land governance wherein he
indicated connecting, mobilizing and influencing to
be the components of NES. NES Platform is impact,
for it can abridge CSOs, governmental agencies, LPAs,
research institutions and private sector.Asian
representation, Nahid Naghizadeh, came to urge to
look upon the urgent need to resolve land tenure
issues. She presented case studies on capacity
building process, policy influence,