Global Alliance to Support Developing Countries Affected by Climate Change

With efforts to combat desertification underway at the United Nations, the European Commission has proposed the formation of an international alliance in support of those developing countries most affected by climate change, which has been exacerbating aridification and soil impoverishment worldwide.

On September 15, 2007, the Madrid Conference, having brought together the 191 signatories of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, 1 ended in failure. Despite alarming evidence of continued desertification worldwide and its close links to climate change, differences between the United States and Japan prevented any real consensus for increasing the level of funding allocated to fighting this scourge. Without funding and devoid of mandatory force, the new version of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is just another list of lofty goals to be reached in the next ten years.

This failure means that the UN was unable to persuade its member countries to contribute a greater share of Official Development Assistance to agriculture and improved management of natural resources. And yet, these areas could provide solutions for curbing the advance of desertification, decreasing human impact on climate and the environment and identifying strategies for adapting to climate change.

The European Union may perhaps fare better in these efforts. Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid,2 proposed to the 27 member countries that the EU initiate a new partnership for development, centered on efforts to combat climate change. This “global alliance” would be the only way to rally the financial and technical resources required to help developing countries prepare for the increased frequency and intensity of the vagaries of weather that they will be among the first to face.

Five priority areas were identified, in which the agricultural sector could serve as an effective lever: “implementing concrete adaptation measures; reducing emissions from deforestation; helping poor countries take advantage from the global carbon market; helping poor countries to be better prepared for natural disasters, and finally, integrating climate change into development cooperation and poverty reduction strategies.”

With a new United Nations Environment Organization on the horizon, an increasing number of initiatives are being advanced to address transnational issues related to environmental protection and combating climate change, two areas for action that should be taken into account in development cooperation. Let us nonetheless hope that this increase in awareness will translate into tangible efforts and that Agricultural Development Assistance may be capable of meeting the challenges at hand.