The Drylands Development Centre Response to the Millenium Development Goals.
1 ) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (Response)
Reducing poverty and hunger lie at the heart of the work of the Drylands Development Centre's work. Poverty and hunger are common in the Drylands, and problems of development are often intractable. Despite the potential of the drylands to support good livelihoods they are often home to some of the world's poorest people.
The Drylands Development Centre is ready to help to create the conditions that allow the poor of the drylands to escape from poverty. First they need help in maximizing benefits from the use of the available natural resources and the specific advantages of dry areas. A reliable land tenure system will also encourage farmers to invest their own money and efforts into the land. Ensuring fair prices and organized access to markets are important aspects in determining the ability of the people living in the drylands to improve their quality of life. Assistance in coping with drought years will also prevent people from slipping back into poverty. Finally, decent social services will prevent the debilitating effects of disease and prepare a generation of better-educated people who can live a good life and take advantage of employment opportunities.
Successful examples of dryland development can be found in the southern USA, Mexico, Israel, Spain, Australia, South Africa and many other places. There are many examples in the developing world of farmers using their skills and knowledge to make the drylands productive. All of these systems - in the developed and the developing worlds- are based on techniques that take advantage of specific characteristics of dryland areas (such as a large amount of sunshine hours) and are achieved through water and soil management, protection from wind, shading for light and temperature control, the use of stress tolerant crop varieties, the introduction of suitable new crops and the use of saline water etc. Equally important are the systems of governance that provide people with the freedom to manage their resources and improve their lives.
In the long term, a well-educated and healthy population can turn drylands into flourishing modern communities. After all, Delhi, Mexico City and Los Angeles are all in dryland areas. What is to prevent the development of Africa and the rest of the dry world in a similar way?
The Drylands Development Centre is working with countries to help them to incorporate drylands development issues into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.
Links to stories on what we are doing in various countries on PRSPs
The UN Millennium Project and the Hunger Task Force
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals will be a challenge to all involved. The United Nations has established the Millennium Project to investigate the challenge and to advise the Secretary General on the measures that will need to be taken to ensure that the Goals are achieved.
The Millennium Project consists of task forces, each charged with developing recommendations on achieving a specific goal or sub-goal. The Drylands Development Centre is particularly associated with the Hunger Task Force whose mandate is the reduction of the proportion of people living with extreme hunger by 2015.
To date a comprehensive paper on reducing hunger has been prepared and is available for comment. To view it, please click here .
<Note that this paper does not necessarily reflect the views of UNDP, it's Executive Board or it's Member States>
2 ) Achieve universal primary education (Response)
The Drylands Development Centre does not work directly on issues of education, but we recognize the vital role of education in drylands development, and our focus on building drylands issues into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers will open opportunities for education issues to be taken into account.
3) Promote gender equality and empower women (Response)
The Drylands Development Centre prepared a publication that discusses how to ensure that gender issues are taken into account in the preparation of National Action Programmes to Combat Desertification and Drought.
Link to publication
Gender issues are of considerable importance where women have reduced rights of land tenure and access to water resources. Our work and advocacy on land reform and water help to identify and redress gender inequality.
Links as shown in text to other parts of the web site
4) Reduce child mortality (Response)
This is an expected outcome of our work on poverty and hunger .
5) Improve maternal health (Response)
This is an expected outcome of our work on poverty and hunger .
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (Response)
There is growing concern that HIV/AIDS is beginning to have devastating effects especially among rural populations. When combined with the effects of drought and famine the prospects are horrific. HIV/AIDS and hunger interact in two ways. Farmers, particularly women who have the main child-rearing responsibilities, become weakened by the illness and become incapable of working in the fields and doing all of their other tasks - cooking, feeding children, collecting water, collecting fuel and many others. This leads to them having to make horrifying choices about where to put their weakened efforts and the effects are felt by the entire family. The second effect of the HIV/AIDS - hunger interaction is that AIDS patients are weakened; they become more susceptible to infections and often succumb to premature death. The Drylands Development centre offers services to UNDP Country Offices in the most affected countries to identify where the most vulnerable people are so that they can be targeted for special support.
Other documents that are of interest are:
1) Impact of HIV/AIDS on food and nutrition security. (Courtesy of WHO)
2) Key documents on HIV/AIDS and rural development . (Courtesy of FAO)
7) Ensure environmental sustainability (Response)
The Drylands Development Centre helps countries to maintain environmental sustainability, especially by focusing policy on land and water management. A particular approach that we have been closely associated with is promoting innovation among farmers. The Promoting Farmer Innovation project has demonstrated that small-scale farmers are capable of developing innovative and successful techniques for land husbandry and water management. Working with GTZ and FAO Farmer Field Schools in East Africa we have encouraged farmers to share their ideas with other farmers, and have demonstrated to decision makers that farmers have skills that should be encouraged and invested in.
Link in text to other part of the web-site.
8) Develop a global partnership for development (Response)
The Drylands Development Centre is part of UNDP's Bureau for Development Policy and contributes to UNDP's advocacy on development. The Centre is particularly interested in establishing domestic and international markets for products from the drylands. It advocates the improvement of local markets for drylands crops to stimulate local production, and is developing proposals for programmes to create markets that serve the poor.
