Combating Desertification in Asia

Additional Information

Read how ADB assists DMCs in reversing land degradation in Asia.

PRC-GEF Program

Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM)

Prevention and Control of Dust and Sandstorms in Northeast Asia

Feature Article:
Rolling Back the Scourge of Desertification

Fact Sheet and Photo Essay

Inquiries/Feedback
Nessim Ahmad Director, Environment and Social Safeguards Division Tel. +632 632-4444 Email: environment@adb.org Website: ADB & the Environment

Combating Desertification in Asia

Desertification and its effects

World Environment Day: Combating Deserts and Desertification

Desertification is defined by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activity." About 4 billion hectares or 1/3 of the earth's land surface is threatened by desertification, over 250 million people are directly affected, and one billion people in over 100 countries are at risk. Twenty four billion tons of fertile soils disappear every year (Source: www.unccd.int*).

From 1991 to 2000 alone, droughts have been responsible for over 280,000 deaths and they accounted for 11% of the total water-related disasters. Annually, 12 million people die as a result of water shortages or contaminated drinking water. Desertification threatens the livelihoods of one billion people and has already made 135 million people homeless. Every year, desertification generates income losses totaling US$42 billion (Source: www.ifad.org*).

Causes of desertification

Most human activities that can lead to desertification are closely related to agricultural practices such as:

overgrazing, which removes the vegetation cover that protects against erosion;
overcultivation, which exhausts the soil
deforestation, which destroys the trees that bind the land to the soil.

Poor irrigation practices raise salinity, and sometimes dry the rivers that feed large lakes. The intensification of human activities brings an increased greenhouse effect, causing global warming. Drylands are likely to be especially vulnerable to effects of climate change.

Desertification and Poverty in Asia

Desertification is evident in many different forms across Asia. Out of a total land area of 4.3 billion hectares, Asia contains some 1.7 billion hectares of arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid land reaching from the Mediterranean coast to the shores of the Pacific. Vast expanse of these areas is affected by desertification.

Nine Asian Development Bank (ADB) developing member countries (DMCs) have large land areas within the arid, semiarid and dry subhumid zones. These are the Central Asian republics (CARs): Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan,Turkemenistan, and Uzbekistan; People's Republic of China (PRC); India; Mongolia; and Pakistan. In terms of the number of people , Asia is the most affected.

Problems of land degradation are closely linked to poverty in Asia, with many vulnerable communities dependent upon arid lands subject to periodic droughts and desertification processes. Even in the humid tropics, deforestation and other contributing factors are reducing the productivity of soils upon which poor rural communities depend for their livelihoods. Without access to sustainable land use practices, institutional services, credit and technology, many poor farmers find themselves contributing to the degradation of the very lands upon which they depend for food and income.

ADB's Response

As a prominent development agency in Asia and the Pacific dedicated to alleviating the region's poverty and ensuring its development is environmentally sustainable, ADB works with its partners at the country and regional levels to address land degradation problems. ADB also is an executing agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which is a financial mechanism of the UNCCD and provides funding for programs to help countries implement programs to meet their obligations under this treaty. In cooperation with GEF and the countries of East and Central Asia, ADB has helped to establish three partnerships for combating drought and desertification. and ADB also is doing its part to help to address land degradation problems across the Asia-Pacific region.

PRC-GEF Partnership on Dryland Ecosystems Management in PRC
ADB has joined with the Government, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Bank and others to form the PRC-GEF Partnership on Dryland Ecosystems Management with the goals of reducing poverty, arresting land degradation, and restoring dryland ecosystems in the Western region of the PRC. A Country Programming Framework (CPF) covering the period of 2003 to 2012 supports a sequenced set of high priority activities to:

strengthen the enabling environment and build institutional capacity for integrated approaches to combat land degradation;
demonstrate viable integrated ecosystem management models for widespread replication.

Investments to support the CPF over the 10-year period are expected to total some $1.5 billion, with the Government contributing $700 million and mobilization of an additional $765 million from other development partners, including $150 million in GEF cofinancing through ADB and other GEF agencies.

Prevention and Control of Dust and Sandstorm in Northeast Asia
One of the most troubling problems associated with desertification and land degradation processes is the creation of dust and sandstorms. In the PRC and other countries of Northeast Asia, dust and sandstorms represent serious transboundary environmental concerns, and unfortunately they have become almost regular phenomena-sweeping across Mongolia and the northern part of the PRC, to the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The region suffers enormous economic costs from these storms, including debilitating impacts on the health of millions of people. To help reduce these damages, an effective early warning system with monitoring and forecasting capacity is under development with assistance from ADB and other partners.

In addition to work in the PRC under the partnership mentioned above, measures also are beginning in Mongolia to address the root causes of the storms-overgrazing and other unsustainable agricultural practices. This subregional initiative already has achieved a high degree of cross-country cooperation among the dust and sandstorm affected countries in the region, and it is poised to continue its work into the future. Read the brochure.

Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management
In Central Asia, land degradation is a serious economic, social, and environmental problem. The transition economies of the Central Asian countries-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan-face a range of land management challenges that directly affect the livelihoods of their rural populations by reducing the productivity of land resources and adversely affecting the stability, functions, and ecological services of natural systems.

The causes of land degradation are multiple, complex, and varied across these countries, but they are largely attributable to the abuse and over-exploitation of the natural resource base dating from the period when this region was part of the Soviet Union. Of particular concern are inappropriate and unsustainable agricultural practices, overgrazing, deforestation, forest degradation, often complicated by the effects of natural disasters.

With support provided through ADB's Regional Technical Assistance Project on Combating Desertification in Asia, the Central Asian countries worked with ADB and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD to spearhead formulation of the Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM). The goal of this program is to combat land degradation and improve rural livelihoods through a multi-country and development partner coalition supporting development and implementation of national programming frameworks to guide comprehensive and integrated approaches to sustainable land management in each CAC and across the region.

As in the case of the PRC/GEF Partnership, CACILM provides a long-term strategic approach to organizing actions at the national and multi-country levels to address these problems-again with catalytic support from the GEF. With ADB serving as the lead international agency, CACILM will support implementation of a 10-year program of country-driven activities and resource mobilization covering the period of 2006-2015. The current target is to mobilize about $1.4 billion towards this effort, with ADB as the largest contributor and the GEF providing $100 million over ten years in grant co-financing to support projects approved under the CACILM framework. Visit the CACILM website.

These three initiatives-together with many other efforts integrated into agricultural and natural resources management projects across Asia and the Pacific-indicate the degree of ADB's commitment to assisting with UNCCD implementation and combating the scourge of land degradation in this region. On the occasion of World Environment Day as devoted to addressing this problem, ADB is pleased to be doing its part to improve the basis for sustainable management of the natural resources upon which so much of Asia's rural population depends as well as taking measures to conserve natural systems that provide important ecosystem services at the local, national and global levels.

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