National Financing Strategy launched in Lebanon

On 15 March, on the fringes of CRIC.5, the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture and the GM co-organized a side event on the resource mobilization strategy for NAP Implementation in Lebanon.

 

Mr Hussein Nasrallah, CCD Focal Point, Ministry of Agriculture and Mr Ricardo Khoury, ELARD Consultant, presented the Lebanese approach which is a response to the changing development financing environment at the international and national levels. The presentation touched on the structure of strategy, the methodology used, the outcomes and anticipated benefits expected, and candidly pinpointed the barriers encountered in the process.

 

“The Lebanese experience confirms the GM approach to resource mobilization”, said Christian Mersmann, the GM’s Managing Director. “We have to bring NAPs closer and closer to national development programming in order to use the NAP to mainstream UNCCD concerns into domestic planning and budget cycles”.

 

The GM is working in Lebanon in partnership with the UNDP Country Office, the UNDP Dryland Development Centre and GTZ. Yet the GM’s support was not only financial. “The GM’s technical support was crucial in the process”, Lebanon said. “It has supported the Government in identifying the alternative sources of financing that could be most appropriate for the Lebanese context and advise on how to tap them”.

 

Questions from the floor included whether this methodology could have a positive spill-over beyond sustainable land management into other sectors (United States). Mr Roshan Cooke, GM replied that the strategy was overarching and lent itself to a landscape approach and that it is expected that the various sector Ministries will contribute to a common initiative according to their respective comparative advantages.

 

Finland asked what measures the partners were taking to ensure that SLM benefits from the huge pledges to Lebanon for reconstruction and specifically the USD 7 billion pledged by the Paris III Donor Conference. Mr Walid Nasr, GM, replied that, indeed, the financial flows for reconstruction changed the dynamics of the partners’ approach and that work was underway to secure financing for SLM, by, inter alia, mainstreaming SLM/CCD concepts into Government programmes on water, energy and social issues, especially since environment was not the top priority of the Paris Conference.

 

In his closing remarks, Mr Mersmann stressed the importance of the Lebanese experience as the first case of a National Financing Strategy, as championed by the GM, being applied in practice.  “Not only is it fascinating example of how to address the complexity of resource mobilization at national level,” he said. “It is also of paramount importance in relation to the 10-year strategy being developed for the UNCCD. The main lesson to be learnt is that the way forward must take country realities into consideration and the knowledge that exists must be effectively shared so it can feed into the work of other country Parties.”

 

  Read the Strategy Concept (PDF, English, 256 Kb)

For more information, please contact:

Mr Walid Nasr, Advisor, Asia & Pacific
Tel. +39 06 5459 2605
w.nasr (at) ifad.org