For about a billion people in Africa and some of the Asian countries, land degradation and subsequent desertification means one more step to hunger. The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), 1994, is the only environmental convention that addresses the issue of poverty head on. Still, desertification never became a GEF focal area or a funding priority, despite pressure from affected nations.

At the recent assembly in New Delhi, Hama Arba Diallo, the executive secretary of the CCD, asserted that desertification should get more GEF attention, as it is linked to the GEF focal areas. "Drylands are vast carbon reserves and their potential as carbon sinks is significant,' he noted in his statement to the assembly.

Meanwhile, at a workshop, panelists traced the links between land degradation, desertification, drought and other global environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity and international waters. As Diallo pointed out: "Growing carbon sinks is a critical part of policy measures to meet the commitments for reducing green house gas emissions.'

At its first assembly, the GEF committed itself to more support for tackling land degradation, of which desertification is a critical aspect. A day before the assembly, the council cleared the first GEF biodiversity project that addresses land degradation in Senegal and Mauritania.

The statement adopted by member countries at the assembly in New Delhi said: "The GEF should seek to better define the linkages between land degradation, particularly desertification and deforestation, and its focal areas and to increase GEF support for land degradation activities...' Diallo called the initiative "just a first step'. He pointed out that several countries affected by desertification worry about paying off international debts. "Often the stress is on production at whatever cost. It leads to land degradation.' The debt trap is all the more reason for the donor nations to address this issue.

Climate change gets a lot of attention from the developed world, but not a phenomenon that is a possible result of climate change, namely, desertification. As chairperson of the first CCD meet Mohamed Mahmoud El-Ghaouth of Mauritania said, the "double standards' of the developed world should be done away with.