Geoscience Reference
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within the UNCCD but there is still a lack of funding or the necessary capacity
in terms of personnel and equipment to fully implement the measures outlined.
Government commitment to the incorporation of the NAP into the national de-
velopment strategy is still some way off. Despite this, Morocco is credited by
UNCCD as adopting an “integrated and comprehensive” approach in the fight
against desertification and land degradation. With assistance from The Global
Mechanism (GM) strengthen the national capacities to establish a development
partnership and resource mobilization strategy for the NAP. The strategy focuses on:
building the resource mobilization capacity of NAP stakeholders;
strengthening consultations with development partners in financing priority NAP
projects.
The strategy, supported by UNDP and Germany through GTZ, has allowed
Morocco to integrate the combating of land degradation into national planning and
sectoral investment frameworks, as well as into the priorities of several development
partners. These partners include Spain that has made combating desertification a
priority for its cooperation with Morocco, along with Japan, Belgium, the World
Bank, the European Commission and the International Fund for Agricultural Devel-
opment (IFAD), which have responded positively to the strategy by cooperating
in the framework of NAP implementation. Together with IFAD and the United
Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the GM has facilitated
access to Global Environment Facility (GEF) resources by financing the design of
a GEF/PDF-B project that raised USD 6 million for Morocco, complementing an
integrated development project to combat desertification and reduce poverty in the
east of the country totalling USD 18.8 million. Through the HCEFLCD and the
Ministry of Agriculture, Morocco allocates 500 million dirham a year to combating
desertification and 200 million dirham to rural development, totalling the equivalent
of nearly USD 100 million a year. Table 5.2 is a summary of some donor-sponsored
programs.
GM-HCEFLCD cooperation has already brought positive results. In recent years,
the HCEFLCD and other national stakeholders (in agriculture, water resources and
the environment) have designed 53 projects based on the four priority pillars of
the NAP:
Pillar 1: support to combating desertification;
Pillar 2: support to income-generating initiatives;
Pillar 3: activities to fight desertification and mitigate the effects of drought; and
Pillar 4: knowledge building, monitoring and evaluation activities.
At the civil society level, the GM has financed Environment and Development
in the Third World (ENDA Maghreb) to design a plan of action to combat de-
sertification for Moroccan non-governmental organizations (NGOs), subsequently
integrated into UNCCD/NAP priority projects. Twelve projects based on interlink-
ing and integrating the two themes of desertification and decentralization have been
identified and were presented to partners during a national workshop in February
2007. Budget Allocation for follow-up activities has been seriously curtailed and
there is more dependence on external (mainly donor) funding.
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