Drynet members work in different countries across the globe, yet our experiences in promoting sustainable land management show common synergies and similar issues of concern.
Drylands and their recovery and resource rehabilitation often feature low on both the national political agendas and donor agendas. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have a vital role to play in getting these issues higher on the agendas;
Policy frameworks that should ensure political and budgetary attention for drylands have had little effect so far, and need to be better integrated into development processes and aid agreements;
The majority of CSOs working in drylands are strong in implementing approaches and strategies to combat land degradation locally, but find it difficult to connect their achievement to a wider political context and other important actors at local, regional and global level;
There is a general need to integrate environmental issues more closely into development cooperation frameworks;
CSOs – and even governments – are too frequently not adequately aware of the interconnections and potentials for synergies between the different development cooperation frameworks, therefore missing out on important opportunities;
There is limited access for CSOs to information on best practices and the most recent, cutting edge research results. Too often local successes that could inspire others are not disseminated, preventing them of being used to design innovative or replicate successful projects;
CSOs have limited capacity in project development and management techniques to translate their ideas into feasible and fundable projects;
Policy makers and donors sometimes consult with CSOs, but CSOs are usually not structural partners in the process. CSOs in drylands lack capacity to become structural partners in order to make the desired changes;
The knowledge about and experience with methodologies to facilitate participation in planning processes differ widely across countries, hampering effective collaboration;
In most dryland regions in the world, CSOs working on sustainability and poverty reduction are insufficiently organised to work together effectively to have greater collective impact on policy makers and donors.
