Energy and Environment

Publications

• COP III Report

This is the Report of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the Conference. The agenda is the Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Africa.

• COP IV Report

Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the Fourth Conference of the Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification. The agenda is UNDP's contribution to the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

• COP V Report

Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the Fifth Conference of the Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification. The agenda is Supporting Drylands Development.

• UNDP Report to CRIC

Report of the United Nations Development Programme on measures taken to assist the preparation and implementation of action programmes in all regions under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. The report was presented in the First session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC), 18-29 November 2002.

• Decentralized Governance of Natural Resources (16 MB)

Many countries around the world are engaged in the process of decentralization to enhance governance and growth at local level. In many of these countries a large proportion of the rural population depends directly on natural resources for their livelihoods. These resources are not only vital to their well-being but can generate the financial resources, through taxes, fees and other payments, to run democratic local institutions. The decentralization of the governance of natural resources is a means of ensuring improved environmental management while increasing equity and justice for local people, including women and marginalized groups.

• Land Rights Reform and Governance in Africa (6 MB)

How to make it work in the 21st Century?: The main argument of this paper is that insecurity of land tenure is a sociopolitical condition that can be made – and unmade. Its origins lie in 19th and 20th century policies which failed to accord indigenous and customary occupancy their deserved status as private property interests. This has deprived millions of poor of the protection they need to withstand the worst eff ects of social transformation and the commoditisation of land. Lands and resources owned in common have been most aff ected, the more valuable having been withdrawn from local custodianship or reallocated to outsiders and investors.Reforms of the 20th century often improved the access of poor to land through land redistribution and other schemes but made customary rights less secure. Entitlement programmes that converted customary occupancy into individualised European-derived tenure forms have widely extinguished secondary and common property interests.