About us

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

The Desert Margins Program (DMP) has been developed in response to a recommendation made to the international research community at UNCED to consider specific contributions for implementation of the three International Conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change, and Desertification. Three key areas were identified:
1. poverty alleviation;
2. increased agricultural production;
3. environmental protection.
Following this step, a CGIAR task force was appointed to prepare a report on the CGIAR response. The task force recommended that the CGIAR should undertake four global initiatives, including a Global Marginal Soils Initiative. The first effort at addressing the value and desirability of developing a Desert Margins Program (initially called DMI) to combat land degradation started in June 1993, just around the time negotiations for the INCD got under way.

Past attempts to address and arrest land degradation have relied on International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs), NARS, NGOs and other Advanced Research Organizations (AROs) working more or less independently with ad hoc inter-linkages through the NARS. Although this approach served the purpose of each institution, it failed to recognize the considerable benefits of synergy that could be derived from integrating individual institutional interests into a more holistic and coordinated approach.

The imperative for more effective utilization of resources to address common problems has brought together nine countries of sub Saharan Africa: Kenya, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Namibia, Senegal, Niger, South Africa, and Zimbabwe into the Desert Margins Programme (DMP) with a basic premise to develop an integrated national, sub regional, and international action programme for developing sustainable natural-resource management options to combat land degradation and loss of biodiversity. The DMP would build on the existing National Action Programs (NAPs) of the CCD and involve both development and action-research efforts to unravel the complex causal factors of biodiversity loss through land degradation, and formulate and pilot appropriate solutions.

Moreover, the sites selected by the DMP countries are priority sites for dryland conservation and rehabilitation highlighted in the different country NAPs and have been identified in a consultative process encompassing national stakeholders at all levels.

120 million people live in the nine countries participating in the DMP, with some of the highest population growth rates in the world. The majority of these people depend on rainfed agriculture and natural rangelands, which are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Cereal production per unit area of land has been decreasing in the last few decades because of the impacts of land degradation and increasing aridity, thus compelling farmers to clear more and more virgin lands.

The project will make significant contribution towards the achievements of these goals. In addition to the GEF eligibility criteria listed above, all DMP member countries have ratified the three conventions on UNFCC, UNCC and CBD.

Source: The DMP project document.