Source: Parliament calls for land restoration funding – herald
Herald Reporter
PARLIAMENT will intensify its oversight role to ensure Zimbabwe accesses emerging international financing for land restoration and aridity management following the conclusion of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, last Friday.
Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, Climate and Wildlife, Sam Matema, said Zimbabwe should leverage commitments made at the conference to strengthen efforts towards land degradation neutrality, climate resilience and food security.
In a statement following the conference, Cde Matema said combating land and soil degradation was central to the country’s National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2) and the attainment of Vision 2030, which seeks to create an empowered and prosperous upper-middle-income society.
“Land degradation and aridity directly threaten Zimbabwe’s agricultural productivity, climate resilience, and food security,” he said.
“The proceedings at COP17 in Mongolia demonstrate that global policy action, legislative oversight and dedicated resource allocation are urgently required to arrest soil depletion.”
Among the major outcomes of the conference was increased financial mobilisation for land restoration and aridity management.
The African Development Bank pledged US$500 million towards aridity management and land restoration, while the European Union, Spain and the Asian Development Bank also announced targeted allocations.
Mr Matema said Parliament would use its oversight mandate to ensure Zimbabwe actively accessed such multilateral financing to support domestic restoration programmes.
“This presents an opportunity for Zimbabwe to strengthen its resource base for land restoration and climate resilience,” he said.
The conference also recorded progress towards the development of a global drought management framework, with negotiators consolidating outcomes from COP16 and COP17 into a unified decision.
The decision establishes a pathway towards the adoption of a binding global drought management framework at COP18.
Cde Matema said Zimbabwe needed to remain actively engaged in the process to ensure that emerging international frameworks served the country’s interests and responded to its particular environmental and agricultural circumstances.
COP17 also saw member states finalise texts recognising traditional knowledge and the rights of pastoralist communities, while strengthening data safeguards and refining the policy focus towards agricultural production systems.
The focus on production systems, Cde Matema said, was particularly relevant to Zimbabwe, where agriculture remains central to livelihoods and national food security.
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