Policy context
Desertification policy: implementation, impacts and effectiveness
| Authors: | Ahmed El Aich, Zoritza Kiresiewa |
| Coordinating authors: | Inma Alados, Ruta Landgrebe, Sandra Nauman |
| Editors: | Alexandros Kandelapas, Jane Brandt |
Editor's note 20Mar14: Source D242-5.
Desertification policy: description
As part of the UNCCD implementation process, the National Action Programme to Combat Desertification (NAP) was designed and validated in 2001. The NAP is based on the principles of integration, decentralization, partnership building and participation. Morocco's NAP is a strategic framework for combating desertification and is integrated into the country’s sustainable development policies.
The strategy for rangeland development addresses the pastoral issue by encouraging the effective participation of the beneficiaries and the integration of rangeland in their socio-economic environment, represented by the local agricultural soil and the market.
Further programmes included in the PAN cover the
- mobilization of water resources,
- National Programme of Irrigation,
- Directory Plan for the Conservation Management of non-irrigated land,
- catchment basin planning Programmes.
Other Programmes have been set up as part of the PAN which deal with rural poverty and agricultural education, supply of drinking water in rural areas (PAGER), rural electrification (PERG), rural roads construction (PNCRR), and female empowerment.
The main point of interest of the national plan to fight desertification lies in its originality as an institutional framework: in the absence of such a framework, each of the actors continues his or her activities as usual. The state has no capacities flexible enough to intervene on a small scale. Instead, its administrative and accounting structures are better suited for carrying out large-scale operations.
Desertification policy: effectiveness
There is a strong political will and framework to address desertification problems, but no action seems to be able to stop the progression of desertification. Generally, there is a need to reinforce and review the laws. Morocco is still using laws that were used by the French Colonial System in an era that was different from this one. Thus, there is no evolution of the legal issue between the time and the evolution of the situation. There is also a need to rethink the structure of the collective lands and consider biodiversity. In addition, social policy should be linked with the problems of degradation at the study site. The realization that the fight against desertification is not mainly a technological problem, but rather a socio-political one is certainly not new, stated as early as UNCOD, 1977. Social policies supporting rural development and sustainable use of natural resources, such as the availability and opportunity cost of labour in rural areas, of infrastructure and education, and the promotion of non-farm income generating activities, can have a strong impact on land management decisions, given that many land management measures to combat desertification are labour intensive.