Statement by Ms. Christine McNab

UNDP Resident Representative

Launch of

the National Strategy and Action Plan to Combat Desertification

Intercontinental Hotel Amman

5 June 2006

Your Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is an honor to be standing here today in my capacity as UNDP Resident Representative on this World Environment Day, and to celebrate with you the launching of the National Strategy and Action Plan to Combat Desertification in Jordan on the 10^th anniversary year of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

Deserts and desertification are not environmental issues only.  Desertification touches on the lives of each of us. Drylands mean severely reduced production of food, this will not affect the source of income of our farmers only, but will affect each and everyone of us for our daily basic requirement of food, and the overall socio-economy of any country.

Based on the 2002 Human Development Report, Drylands are home to 59% which represents around 140 million of the people in Arab States.  The report adds that the highest incidents of poverty occur in arid zones.  It is evident that efforts in combating desertification are closely linked to poverty alleviation, thus the efforts should concentrate towards the sustainable development of drylands and seek to balance natural resources with human population needs in the short and long terms. The cost of such efforts escalates from year to year as the areas affected increase annually, the degree of damage grows, and the cost of rehabilitation measures rise exponentially.  The off-site costs and the social costs continue to rise; other environmental and economic problems are competing and may distract attention of decision-makers and donor organizations and if the process of desertification is not arrested soon, food shortage in the region will increase dramatically.

We all know that desertification and land degradation are real threats to Jordan, having said that allow me at this occasion to congratulate Your Excellency, the Ministry, our UNDP environment programme and the Drylands Development Center of UNDP for their relentless efforts to come up with such a valuable strategy and action plan.

The National Strategy and Action Plan to Combat Desertification in Jordan represents the government’s obligation to the United Nation Convention to Combat Desertification which was ratified in 1996.  The Preparation, adoption and implementation of the National Action Plan will not only re-confirm Jordan’s commitment and observation of the convention but will also reconfirm its commitment to achieve its Millennium Development Goals.

I am glad to see that Jordan’s strategy, when prepared, had followed the Convention’s “bottom-up” approach. The effective participation at the local, national and regional levels in policy planning, decision-making, and implementation and review of national action programmes prevails as the only meaningful action to combat desertification and can only be achieved with the involvement of stakeholders in affected communities to address their needs and develop effective coping and adaptive strategies in a participatory manner. 

The National Action Plan puts concerns for Jordanian welfare at the centre of efforts to combat desertification with its recognition of the strong linkages between desertification and socio-economic factors such as poverty, food security, migration and demographic factors.  This makes implementation of the Action Plan one of the principal tools for achieving sustainable human development in the affected areas of the country.

We have to admit that it is not easy to reverse desertification but it is time to prevent it.  Our gathering today indicates the seriousness of the problem and that effort to combat and mitigate desertification is on top of the UNDP and government’s agendas of environmental concerns and hope that you succeed in producing concrete results in solving the problem of desertification.

We hope that the Strategy that we are launching today will serve as inspiration for joining hands for Human Development and we do of course in particular look forward to a deepening of our relationship with Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.

We realize that further resource mobilization to assist the government in the implementation of the action plans according to the identified national priority areas will be needed.  We also believe that this Strategy and action plan will pave the way for all the   efforts towards the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, we therefore call on the international community to enhance and complement existing international arrangements to combat desertification for the benefit of present and future generations. 

To that effect, I am sure that the international society will exert its utmost efforts to assist Jordan in its efforts towards the implementation of the action plan.  On behalf of UNDP and its Drylands Development Center we will continuously investigate opportunities for the provision of new and additional financial resources and appropriate access to relevant technologies to make a substantial difference in the world's ability to address the sustainable management of drylands.