Desertification should not take a back seat to climate change debate

If we take a look beyond the current din of the campaigning here in Germany, the term "Copenhagen" seems to be everywhere. The UN climate conference, set for early December in the Danish capital and expected to come up with a new world climate agreement, has assumed something like pride of place in current political debates, and rightly so, too.

Meanwhile, another global policy process facing an important test is in danger of being completely overlooked here in Germany: the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), whose ninth Conference of the Parties is set to come together in Buenos Aires from Sept. 21 to Oct 2. It's a somewhat strange state of affairs considering that the UNCCD has found its institutional home in the German "UN town" of Bonn.

This lack of attention is symptomatic for the intricate history of the convention, which came into force in 1996 and is described, even by well-meaning critics, as modest in scope. It was in unaccustomed unanimity at the last conference of parties in 2007 in Madrid that industrialized and developing countries adopted an ambitious 10-year strategic plan, launching a set of far-reaching institutional reforms.

Additionally, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a new executive secretary, Luc Gnacadja, a former environmental minister of Benin who has brought a reputation as a firm, assertive, and efficient manager to the job. In short, the prevailing spirit was one of optimism for the future.

It takes 193 to tango

It is now proving difficult to sustain that impetus in the run-up to the Buenos Aires meeting. However, the upcoming conference of the 193 parties to the convention - all of the UN member states plus the European Community - is far more than just another test. If not enough is done to follow up on the decisions taken in Madrid, the momentum for reform may well dissipate, relegating the convention process to the background of development policy once and for all.

That would not be in the interest of Germany, the convention's host country, and certainly not in the interests of the one third of the global population living in the world's dryland regions -most of them in absolute poverty. And it would effectively make a farce of the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification (2010-20), even before it had got underway.

Scientific expertise without political agenda

One reason for optimism that the conference may take a constructive course is seen in the meeting of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST), a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties. In keeping with the decisions on reform adopted in Madrid, the CST meeting will, for the first time, be organized in the form of an international expert conference. Germany had called for this, and the aim of the move is to prevent the CST from being misused - as it often has in the past - as a sideline arena for politicized procedural debates between developing and developed countries.

Instead, the idea is to set the stage for the representatives of the parties to engage in a focused exchange on substantive issues with eminent representatives of the scientific community, enabling them to reach agreement on a set of clear and verifiable indicators urgently needed for a result-based implementation of specific convention objectives. If the conference succeeds in coming to viable decisions in this area, it would have achieved at least one paramount goal.

Anticipated budget problems

Among the other critical points on the agenda is, as always, the budget of the convention secretariat. In the light of past years' experiences and against the background of the current financial crisis, there is every reason to expect the donor countries to adopt a restrictive course here.

The donors would, however, be well advised to understand clearly that it is essential to give the new leadership the scope of action it needs to bring about effective change, both in structural and in personnel terms, bearing on the future organization of the convention process. The new, results-based management system adopted under Executive-Secretary Gnacadja has proven useful in distinguishing between core and non-core tasks of the secretariat, creating a clear-cut basis for funding decisions.

Controversy over convention's implementation

In addition, controversial negotiations are expected on decentralizing the implementation of the convention. While many developing countries favor regional offices of the UNCCD Secretariat, developed countries fear this would in effect create a set of inefficient and, above all, costly parallel structures. Whether reasonable and workable compromises are reached on the undisputed need for improved policy coordination at the regional and sub-regional level is a matter that will largely depend on the negotiating skills of the parties.

In all points set for discussion, Germany and the European Union are called upon to contribute their share to the success of the upcoming Conference of the Parties as well as to efforts to implement the 10-year strategic plan. That would mean, first of all, to pay adequate political attention to the convention process. Sending no heads of state or government, or at least pertinent ministers, to Buenos Aires for the Conference of the Parties would be tantamount to signaling precisely the opposite. It would, instead, serve to underline the already prevalent impression in the developing countries that the industrialized countries are at best indifferent to the goals of the UNCCD.

If Germany and Europe are, in fact, interested in guiding a successful conference tango, they would be well advised to show both resolution and credibility vis-a-vis their partners from the developing world. The diplomatic stage has been set, the roles assigned. While the steps involved may be as intricate as those of an artful Argentine tango, they are still sufficiently well known. Ultimately, it will hinge on whether or not the 193 partners are inclined to dance together - or prepared to stumble and fail, one and all.

Author: Steffen Bauer (ari)

Editor: Sean Sinico

Steffen Bauer is a political scientist in the "Environmental Policy and Management of Natural Resources" Department of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE).

Based in Bonn, the German Development Institute draws together the knowledge of development research available worldwide, dedicating its work to key issues facing the future of development policy. It consults on the basis of independent research findings in Germany and worldwide and deals with current issues in cooperation between industrial and developing countries.