The GM's Engagement Strategy
The GM’s work is increasingly dependent on an attractive, meaningful and constructive international policy agenda and processes.
There are numerous opportunities to develop such an agenda for the UNCCD and the GM is intent on making a specific contribution.
Within the new international setting, the GM is situated at the interface between the UNCCD and agricultural and development programming processes. It is therefore in a privileged position to inform and substantiate:
- international processes - in particular CRIC and COP - but also those with which the UNCCD is aligned in terms of poverty reduction and SLM, notably the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a view to generating synergies to support country level implementation; and
- country processes - by providing advisory services and capacity building on strategic and thematic issues with a view to maximising the impact of its cooperation.
At country level
At country level the GM is strengthening its longer-term commitment to country Parties. Engagement will be characterized by support over 2-3 years to interested countries and will in the form of advisory services and capacity-building.
At regional level
At regional level the GM is striving to increase the impact of its cooperation through interventions of 3-4 years’ duration aimed at fostering dialogue and sharing experiences through expert consultations and other events that the GM organizes or supports,with a view to:
- furthering an understanding of the GM’s specific role and the importance of the UNCCD as a development convention
- incorporating countries experiences into the broader debate, and
- positioning the UNCCD in the global context of development programming and macro-economic reform processes.
At international level
At international level, the GM participates in a variety of global events within the context of the Multi-lateral Environmental Conventions, the UN and its organizations such as FAO and UNDP, the World Bank Group and international institutions and NGOs.
Beyond this institutional engagement, the GM participates in media events such as the current BBC World series “Advancing Sands: Deserts and Migration", which constitutes a contribution to the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
The GM's engagement at international level is strategically placed to pass on the message on the potential contribution the UNCCD can make to sustainable land management and poverty reduction and to increasing the common understanding of the GM's enhanced approach to UNCCD implementation.
The GM’s contributions at this level are part of a GM learning process to assist in strengthening the strategic and policy debate at COP and CRIC.
The following pillars underpin the GM’s engagement:
Supporting domestic approaches to SLM financing
The GM is committed to strengthening National Action Programmes (NAPs) and supporting their integration into policy processes to illustrate the specific contribution that the UNCCD can make to poverty reduction efforts, rural development and natural resource management and thereby attract funding for their implementation.
The GM is specializing in developing and implementing national financing strategies (NFSs) which analyze not only NAP policy processes but also domestic budget processes, international aid delivery and overarching development agendas such as Policy Reduction Strategies (PRSs), to ascertain how best to engage stakeholders in mobilizing domestic and international resources for a given country Party.
National financing strategies will be the core business of the GM in the future.
Mainstreaming
COP has identified the mainstreaming approach - long advocated and practised by the GM - as the main instrument for enhancing the integration of the UNCCD into the development agendas at country level.
Convinced that successful mobilization of financial resources involves the mobilization of instrumental resources (strategic frameworks and policy instruments), human resources (stakeholders, organizations and institutions), and knowledge and information resources (capacity-building), the GM aims to promote this key instrument in UNCCD implementation and to affirm its specific role in this context.
Partnership-building
As a special service provider in finance for UNCCD implementation, the GM’s is strengthening its corporate expertise on the strategic issues, concepts and approaches.
It should be understood however that the GM does not intend to develop comprehensive in-house knowledge. Instead, it is partnering with international and regional institutions, the scientific community and individual experts. Support from its Facilitation Committee members and increased cooperation with International Finance Institutions (IFIs), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and bilateral organizations are prerequisites for successful engagement at all levels. Initiatives such as TerrAfrica offer great potential in this regard.
The GM forges or joins partnerships for two reasons:
- to draw upon the technical and strategic expertise of organizations and their processes which can be used by the GM to mobilize resources for a specific objective e.g. landscape restoration through FAO; and institution building and governance through organizations such as the Overseas Development Institute and the World Bank; and
- to work very closely with IFIs such as the World Bank, the International Development Banks, bilateral donor agencies, the Global Environment Facility and IFAD, to convince these institutions that a balanced approach to development means to invest in SLM and rural development to reduce poverty and to persuade them to match their investments with emerging national UNCCD priorities.