At present, sustainable land management (SLM) remains at the periphery of national political priorities and as a result does not receive the attention and finance its broad value clearly warrants. In order to increase finance for land:
- SLM must become a part of the day-to-day business in all related sectors;
- Its role must be integrated at the heart of national development frameworks;
- Countries must develop a comprehensive response to the challenges of land degradation.
Mainstreaming
This process of integration of SLM into broader development frameworks, which we call "mainstreaming", is central to increasing investments, because without political support at the highest level, land will continue to remain a marginalized issue.
The UNCCD Conference of the Parties (COP) has identified the mainstreaming approach - long advocated and practised by the GM - as the main instrument for enhancing the implementation of the UNCCD.
The GM aims to promote this key instrument, 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).
Country Ownership, Harmonization and Results
The GM fully supports that in order to increase financial resources for land, countries themselves must assume full control and ownership over the process.
Central to this is the implementation of the five principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action:
- Ownership: Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies, and coordinate development actions.
- Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries' national development strategies, institutions, and procedures.
- Harmonization: Donors' actions are more harmonized, transparent, and collectively effective.
- Managing for results: Managing resources and improving decision making for development results.
- Mutual accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results.
