West & Central Africa Programme

The West and Central Africa Programme has four main objectives for the 2008-2009 biennium:

One

Mainstreaming of sustainable land management (SLM) and UNCCD National Action Programmes (NAPs) into development programming frameworks that are attractive to donors and enjoy their support, notably Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). This is happening in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Madagascar, Chad and Togo. In Burkina Faso, for instance, the GM is working together with other TerrAfrica partners (the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the Royal Danish Embassy), to support the Government in ensuring that SLM is effectively reflected in the Agricultural and Rural Development Sector Programme (ARDSP). This programme is designed to serve as the basis for defining the framework within which, as of 2010, the Ministries of Agriculture, Livestock Production and Environment will take decisions on resource allocation under the Strategic Framework to Combat Poverty (SFCP) to the rural development sector.

Two

 Supporting the development and implementation of  integrated investment frameworks (IFFs) to finance SLM activities and UNCCD implementation in Benin, Mali, Niger and Cameroon. In all four countries the GM is working in close partnership with institutions including the World Bank, UNDP, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), to support government in designing and implementing - with the broad participation of all segments of society - IIFs to finance SLM activities.

Three

Formulation of Action Programmes to Combat Desertification (UNCCD NAPs and SRAPs) and/or their alignment with the UNCCD Ten-Year Strategy. In the case of countries that have yet to finalize their NAPs (Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda and Seychelles), the ambition of countries concerned and the GM is to develop NAPs that are directly aligned with the Ten-Year Strategy.

Four

Strengthening subregional cooperation around the UNCCD and SLM. In order to reach out to the largest possible number of countries in the two sub regions, the GM has set up partnership frameworks with the regional coordination mechanisms for the implementation of the UNCCD, namely the sub-regional organizations: the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); the Permanent Inter-State Committee for drought control in the Sahel (CILSS); the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC); and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). This arrangement enables the GM to extend its support to all the other countries, not only by eliciting these institutions’ assistance in the replication of the experiences of its ‘core’ countries and their ad hoc support, but also by creating together ‘spaces for dialogue’ between countries belonging to the same geographical area (for instance by organizing workshops bringing together all the countries of Central or West Africa).