What we do
Dramatic changes have taken place in resource allocation modalities for international development cooperation (ODA) since the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness was adopted by many countries and the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness endorsed its action plan. These changes in the international financial architecture, coupled with dramatically changing domestic budget allocation processes, have turned resource allocation modalities into a complicated business indeed.
The GM promotes understanding and contributes to knowledge generation on the new financial modalities. The GM works with country Parties to the Convention to enhance their capacities to engage in the planning and programming of development, thereby positioning SLM politically and strategically and influencing financial resource allocations This is essential in view of competing national development priorities for the same limited resources since SLM, agriculture and forestry production are not necessarily obvious priorities for many developing countries in the context of poverty reduction.
While the GM’s services are tailored to UNCCD focal points and National Action Programme (NAP) implementation, they are at the same time framed within the broader context of development programming, since SLM is a cross-sectoral issue that has a strong bearing on many sectors, including forestry, trade, rural development and climate change.
In practice, the GM forges partnerships with national institutions to promote inter-ministerial dialogue that engages the Ministries of the Environment and Agriculture with the Ministry of Finance. This dialogue centres on priority setting and finance for SLM. The reason for such an approach is to ensure that SLM becomes more central to budget and financial resource allocation processes. Understanding and working within domestic budget processes increases access to emerging international finance – particularly climate change finance and resources available to safeguard food security as well as water harvesting and environmentally-induced migration.
Notwithstanding the UNCCD’s focus on Africa, the GM aspires to support all developing-country Parties by promoting the sharing of experiences and lessons learned, including through South-to-South cooperation, given the relevance and potential for replication of such experiences, and the outcomes of other international development processes and other conventions.