ENB:04:03
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PLENARY
The following presentations will be made today:
UNEP: Dr. Norberto Fernandez, Manager of the GRID Facility, will continue with the discussion portion of his presentation, which was cut short yesterday afternoon.
FAO: Wim G. Sombroek, Director of the Land and Water Development Division, and El Hadji M. Sene, Chief of the Forest Conservation and Widelands branch of the Forest Resource Division, are scheduled to speak on degradation of rainfed and irrigated lands, pastoral lands and forest lands. HABITAT: Jochan Eigen, Coordinator of the Sustainable Cities Programme, and Graham Alabaster, human settlements officer of the Research and Development Division, will discuss HABITAT's "Urbanization and Land Degradation - A Draft Agenda." Their intervention will focus on the relationship between urbanization and land degradation and, in particular, the need to strengthen urban management capacity to combat desertification.
IFAD: Nessim Ahmad, Resource Economist in the Technical Advisory Division of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will probably focus on household livelihood strategies and how households cope with desertification over time.
WORLD BANK: Hassan M. Hassan, Senior Environmental Specialist of the Environmental Division of the World Bank, will speak on the "Economic and Social Policies and Land Degradation in Dryland Areas" and table a paper prepared by John English, former Principal Economist in the Bank's Environmental Department. Look for this intervention to focus on: linkages between socio-economic policies and the management of drylands; the success of both village and community-based solutions to combatting desertification; and the necessity, in some smaller countries, to use regional approaches.
UNSO: Moustapha Soumare, Technical Advisor to UNSO, will focus on challenges in the development and management of natural resources with emphasis on the Sudano-Sahelian region.
OECD: Marilyn Yakowitz, Special Advisor to the OECD, will report on financial resources trends, exploring what exists in terms of data concerning financial resource flows towards combatting desertification, especially official development finance, costs and benefits of accumulating such data and its uses for decision-making. Look for an analysis of the sectoral situation concerning financial flows.
NGOS: Asia region: Dr. Vanaja Ramparad of Third World Network, India, will focus on degradation of highly-productive lands. Look for links between SAPs, GATT, and the Green revolution and desertification. Africa region: Mamadou Lamine Thiam, Programme Officer, Forum of African Voluntary Development Organizations, Senegal will speak on the links between population growth, cash-crop farming and desertification. Latin American region: Juan Palao Iturregui, a socio-educator with Consejo Andino de Manejo Ecologico, Peru, will speak about effects of the World Bank's structural adjustment policies as well as national politics on land degradation.