Tomorrow Today

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society organizations and science and technology institutions. The

reports may include education initiatives conducted in the formal

and non-formal education sectors. They will also be distinct from

advocacy and awareness initiatives, each of which has its own

performance measures.

Building on the DESD: a new decade dedicated to combating

desertification

In 2007, the United Nations declared 2010-2020 the United Nations

Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification (UNDDD).

The purpose is to organize observance activities that will raise aware-

ness about the causes of and solutions to ongoing land degradation

and desertification. In declaring the Decade, the United Nations drew

attention to two things: first, the deteriorating situation of desertifica-

tion in all regions, especially in Africa, and second, its implications for

the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, more specifi-

cally, poverty eradication and environmental sustainability.

Similar concerns led to the declaration of the DESD. Therefore,

linking the two initiatives can scale up the progress towards

sustainable development and poverty eradication. DESD initia-

tives could incorporate substantive knowledge of land

degradation in their education work. The UNDDD

could design educational activities for its campaigns

in cooperation with schools and youth groups. Such

collaboration is essential, given the challenges in

education among drylands communities.

For example, the results of an Annual Learning

Assessment of children aged 6-16 years inKenya conducted

to assess “whether children are learning anything,” and

released in April 2010, found that, on average, children

in the drylands areas are the least equipped with the basic

skills needed for learning. More than half of the children

in these areas lack the competence to read texts in either

English or Kiswahili or to compute mathematics meant for

children with only two years of learning.

Therefore, for

the UNCCD to reach drylands communities, the exper-

tise of the DESD in education programmes is essential.

Similarly, the UNDDD needs to identify suitable content

for the DESD campaigns.

Among the topics envisioned for the UNCCD educa-

tional materials are the feasibility of land restoration

and soil health, the global benefits of land/soils, making

the case for private sector involvement in sustainable

land management, ‘how-to’ materials on solutions to the

problem of land degradation, and ‘training the trainers’

packages for informal education programmes. In future,

existing materials will be reviewed to improve the data

and analyses.

Together, by pooling our resources, we can make a

great difference in the livelihoods of people who live in

the drylands and to their environments.

Researchers studying sustainable land and water

management in drylands and many grassroots level

success stories occurring on continents have provided

the knowledge needed to successfully roll back deserti-

fication. So to a large extent, the key challenge we face

is the sharing of required knowledge in order to scale

up and disseminate the best options for success. And

that is, indeed, an educational challenge.

Water scarcity is a global challenge

Join the campaigns and make a difference

Sustainable land management is essential