Working document presented at the international workshop on the cost of inaction and investment opportunities in dry, arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas held in Rome from December 4-5 2006.
Mélanie Requier-Desjardins and Marc Bied-Charreton (CSFD)
This document prepared by the Comité or CSFD (French scientific committee on desertification) is mainly based on an analysis of the socioeconomic costs of desertification and a few benefits of anti-desertification actions, particularly in Africa. The work was done in 2005-2006 with backing from the French development Agency through the Centre d’économie et d’éthique sur l’environnement et le développement (Centre for economy and ethics for the environment and development) at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. The final report attempted to synthesize the studies available to date, in particular the study undertaken for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) by Dregne (1992) and the more recent ones undertaken for the World Bank, the Global Environment Fund (GEF) and the Global Mechanism by teams working under L. Berry (2003 and 2006), G. Bjorklund (2004) and C. Reij (2003). Finally, it also took into account environment evaluations undertaken for many years for the World Bank in particular by J. Bojo (1996), S. Pagiola (2004) and M. Saraf (2003). It then examined the question of how international migrations and the desertification phenomenon are related, before suggesting several development scenarios.
The document also considers the achievements of international events held in 2006 during the ‘International Year of Deserts and Desertification’ in particular those of the scientific symposium in Tunis on the future of arid areas and those of the international forum on ‘Desertification and civil society’ held in Montpellier (France).
The first section analyses the valuation of macroeconomic costs of desertification in Africa by making an inventory and describing the main results.
The second section introduces the social costs of desertification, with the contributions and limitations of a migration-based approach.
The third section introduces data on profitability and the realities of investment in the fight against desertification.
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