Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-3 (section)

==== 3.6.3.1 Policy responses towards combating desertification under climate change ====

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Policy responses to combat desertification take numerous forms (Marques et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1265|1265]]</sup> ). Below we discuss major policy responses consistently highlighted in the literature in connection with SLM and climate change, because these response options were found to strengthen adaptation capacities and to contribute to climate change mitigation. They include improving market access, empowering women, expanding access to agricultural advisory services, strengthening land tenure security, payments for ecosystem services, decentralised natural resource management, investing into research and monitoring of desertification and dust storms, and investing into modern renewable energy sources.

'''Policies aiming at improving market access,''' that is the ability to access output and input markets at lower costs, help farmers and livestock producers earn more profit from their produce. Increased profits both motivate and enable them to invest more in SLM. Higher access to input, output and credit markets was consistently found as a major factor in the adoption of SLM practices in a wide number of settings across the drylands ( ''medium confidence'' ) (Aw-Hassan et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1266|1266]]</sup> ; Gebreselassie et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1267|1267]]</sup> ; Mythili and Goedecke 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1268|1268]]</sup> ; Nkonya and Anderson 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1269|1269]]</sup> ; Sow et al. 2016). Lack of access to credit limits adjustments and agricultural responses to the impacts of desertification under changing climate, with long-term consequences for the livelihoods and incomes, as was shown during the North American Dust Bowl of the 1930s (Hornbeck 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1271|1271]]</sup> ). Government policies aimed at improving market access usually involve constructing and upgrading rural–urban transportation infrastructure and agricultural value chains, such as investments into construction of local markets, abattoirs and cold storage warehouses, as well as post-harvest processing facilities (McPeak et al. 2006). However, besides infrastructural constraints, providing improved access often involves relieving institutional constraints to market access (Little 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1272|1272]]</sup> ), such as improved coordination of cross-border food safety and veterinary regulations (Ait Hou et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1273|1273]]</sup> ; Keiichiro et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1274|1274]]</sup> ; McPeak et al. 2006; Unnevehr 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1275|1275]]</sup> ), and availability and access to market information systems (Bobojonov et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1276|1276]]</sup> ; Christy et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1277|1277]]</sup> ; Nakasone et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1278|1278]]</sup> ).

'''Women’s empowerment.''' A greater emphasis on understanding gender-specific differences over land use and land management practices as an entry point can make land restoration projects more successful ( ''medium confidence'' ) (Broeckhoven and Cliquet 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1279|1279]]</sup> ; Carr and Thompson 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1280|1280]]</sup> ; Catacutan and Villamor 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1281|1281]]</sup> ; Dah-gbeto and Villamor 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1282|1282]]</sup> ). In relation to representation and authority to make decisions in land management and governance, women’s participation remains lacking particularly in the dryland regions. Thus, ensuring women’s rights means accepting women as equal members of the community and citizens of the state (Nelson et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1283|1283]]</sup> ). This includes equitable access of women to resources (including extension services), networks, and markets. In areas where socio-cultural norms and practices devalue women and undermine their participation, actions for empowering women will require changes in customary norms, recognition of women’s (land) rights in government policies, and programmes to assure that their interests are better represented (Section 1.4.2 and Cross-Chapter Box 11 in Chapter 7). In addition, several novel concepts are recently applied for an in-depth understanding of gender in relation to science–policy interface. Among these are the concepts of intersectionality, that is, how social dimensions of identity and gender are bound up in systems of power and social institutions (Thompson-Hall et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1284|1284]]</sup> ), bounded rationality for gendered decision-making, related to incomplete information interacting with limits to human cognition leading to judgement errors or objectively poor decision making (Villamor and van Noordwijk 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1285|1285]]</sup> ), anticipatory learning for preparing for possible contingencies and consideration of long-term alternatives (Dah-gbeto and Villamor 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1286|1286]]</sup> ) and systematic leverage points for interventions that produce, mark, and entrench gender inequality within communities (Manlosa et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1287|1287]]</sup> ), which all aim to improve gender equality within agroecological landscapes through a systems approach.

'''Education and expanding access to agricultural services. ''' Providing access to information about SLM practices facilitates their adoption ( ''medium confidence'' ) (Kassie et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1288|1288]]</sup> ; Nkonya et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1289|1289]]</sup> ; Nyanga et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1291|1291]]</sup> ). Moreover, improving the knowledge of climate change, capacity building and development in rural areas can help strengthen climate change adaptive capacities (Berman et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1292|1292]]</sup> ; Chen et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1293|1293]]</sup> ; Descheemaeker et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1294|1294]]</sup> ; Popp et al. 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r1296|1296]]</sup> ; Tambo 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1297|1297]]</sup> ; Yaro et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1298|1298]]</sup> ). Agricultural initiatives to improve the adaptive capacities of vulnerable populations were more successful when they were conducted through reorganised social institutions and improved communication, for example, in Mozambique (Osbahr et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r1299|1299]]</sup> ). Improved communication and education could be facilitated by wider use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) (Peters et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1300|1300]]</sup> ). Investments into education were associated with higher adoption of soil conservation measures, for example, in Tanzania (Tenge et al. 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r1301|1301]]</sup> ). Bryan et al. (2009) found that access to information was the prominent facilitator of climate change adaptation in Ethiopia. However, resource constraints of agricultural services, and disconnects between agricultural policy and climate policy can hinder the dissemination of climate-smart agricultural technologies (Morton 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1302|1302]]</sup> ). Lack of knowledge was also found to be a significant barrier to implementation of soil rehabilitation programmes in the Mediterranean region (Reichardt 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1303|1303]]</sup> ). Agricultural services will be able to facilitate SLM best when they also serve as platforms for sharing indigenous and local knowledge and farmer innovations (Mapfumo et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1304|1304]]</sup> ). Participatory research initiatives conducted jointly with farmers have higher chances of resulting in technology adoption (Bonney et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1305|1305]]</sup> ; Rusike et al. 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1306|1306]]</sup> ; Vente et al. 2016). Moreover, rural advisory services are often more successful in disseminating technological innovations when they adopt commodity/value chain approaches, remain open to engagement in input supply, make use of new opportunities presented by ICTs, facilitate mutual learning between multiple stakeholders (Morton 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1307|1307]]</sup> ), and organise science and SLM information in a location-specific manner for use in education and extension (Bestelmeyer et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1308|1308]]</sup> ).

'''Strengthening land tenure security.''' Strengthening land tenure security is a major factor contributing to the adoption of soil conservation measures in croplands ( ''high confidence'' ) (Bambio and Bouayad Agha 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1309|1309]]</sup> ; Higgins et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1310|1310]]</sup> ; Holden and Ghebru 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1311|1311]]</sup> ; Paltasingh 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1312|1312]]</sup> ; Rao et al. 2016; Robinson et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1313|1313]]</sup> ), thus contributing to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Moreover, land tenure security can lead to more investment in trees (Deininger and Jin 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1314|1314]]</sup> ; Etongo et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1315|1315]]</sup> ). Land tenure recognition policies were found to lead to higher agricultural productivity and incomes, although with inter-regional variations, requiring an improved understanding of overlapping formal and informal land tenure rights (Lawry et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1316|1316]]</sup> ). For example, secure land tenure increased investments into SLM practices in Ghana, but without affecting farm productivity (Abdulai et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1317|1317]]</sup> ). Secure land tenure, especially for communally managed lands, helps reduce arbitrary appropriations of land for large-scale commercial farms (Aha and Ayitey 2017; Baumgartner 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1318|1318]]</sup> ; Dell’Angelo et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1319|1319]]</sup> ). In contrast, privatisation of rangeland tenures in Botswana and Kenya led to the loss of communal grazing lands and actually increased rangeland degradation (Basupi et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1320|1320]]</sup> ; Kihiu 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1321|1321]]</sup> ) as pastoralists needed to graze livestock on now smaller communal pastures. Since food insecurity in drylands is strongly affected by climate risks, there is ''robust evidence'' and ''high agreement'' that resilience to climate risks is higher with flexible tenure for allowing mobility for pastoralist communities, and not fragmenting their areas of movement (Behnke 1994 <sup>[[#fn:r1323|1323]]</sup> ; Holden and Ghebru 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1324|1324]]</sup> ; Liao et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1325|1325]]</sup> ; Turner et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1326|1326]]</sup> ; Wario et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1327|1327]]</sup> ). More research is needed on the optimal tenure mix, including low-cost land certification, redistribution reforms, market-assisted reforms and gender-responsive reforms, as well as collective forms of land tenure such as communal land tenure and cooperative land tenure (see Section 7.6.5 for a broader discussion of land tenure security under climate change).

'''Payment for ecosystem services (PES)''' provides incentives for land restoration and SLM ( ''medium confidence'' ) (Lambin et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1328|1328]]</sup> ; Li et al. 2018; Reed et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1329|1329]]</sup> ; Schiappacasse et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1330|1330]]</sup> ). Several studies illustrate that the social costs of desertification are larger than its private cost (Costanza et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1331|1331]]</sup> ; Nkonya et al. 2016a <sup>[[#fn:r1332|1332]]</sup> ). Therefore, although SLM can generate public goods in the form of provisioning ecosystem services, individual land custodians underinvest in SLM as they are unable to reap these benefits fully. Payment for ecosystem services provides a mechanism through which some of these benefits can be transferred to land users, thereby stimulating further investment in SLM. The effectiveness of PES schemes depends on land tenure security and appropriate design, taking into account specific local conditions (Börner et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1333|1333]]</sup> ). However, PES has not worked well in countries with fragile institutions (Karsenty and Ongolo 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1334|1334]]</sup> ). Equity and justice in distributing the payments for ecosystem services were found to be key for the success of the PES programmes in Yunnan, China (He and Sikor 2015). Yet, when reviewing the performance of PES programmes in the tropics, Calvet-Mir et al. (2015), found that they are generally effective in terms of environmental outcomes, despite being sometimes unfair in terms of payment distribution. It is suggested that the implementation of PES will be improved through decentralised approaches giving local communities a larger role in the decision-making process (He and Lang 2015).

'''Empowering local communities for decentralised natural resource management.''' Local institutions often play a vital role in implementing SLM initiatives and climate change adaptation measures ( ''high confidence'' ) (Gibson et al. 2005 <sup>[[#fn:r1335|1335]]</sup> ; Smucker et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1336|1336]]</sup> ). Pastoralists involved in community-based natural resource management in Mongolia had greater capacity to adapt to extreme winter frosts, resulting in less damage to their livestock (Fernandez-Gimenez et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1337|1337]]</sup> ). Decreasing the power and role of traditional community institutions, due to top-down public policies, resulted in lower success rates in community-based programmes focused on rangeland management in Dirre, Ethiopia (Abdu and Robinson 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1338|1338]]</sup> ). Decentralised governance was found to lead to improved management in forested landscapes (Dressler et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1339|1339]]</sup> ; Ostrom and Nagendra 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1340|1340]]</sup> ). However, there are also cases when local elites were placed in control and this decentralised natural resource management negatively impacted the livelihoods of the poorer and marginalised community members due to reduced access to natural resources (Andersson and Ostrom 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r1341|1341]]</sup> ; Cullman 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1343|1343]]</sup> ; Dressler et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1344|1344]]</sup> ).

The success of decentralised natural resource management initiatives depends on increased participation and empowerment of a diverse set of community members, not only local leaders and elites, in the design and management of local resource management institutions (Kadirbeyoglu and Özertan 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1345|1345]]</sup> ; Umutoni et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1346|1346]]</sup> ), while considering the interactions between actors and institutions at different levels of governance (Andersson and Ostrom 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r1347|1347]]</sup> ; Carlisle and Gruby 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1349|1349]]</sup> ; McCord et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1351|1351]]</sup> ). An example of such programmes where local communities played a major role in land restoration and rehabilitation activities is the cooperative project on The National Afforestation and Erosion Control Mobilization Action Plan in Turkey, initiated by the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (Çalişkan and Boydak 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1352|1352]]</sup> ), with the investment of 1.8 billion USD between 2008 and 2012. The project mobilised local communities in cooperation with public institutions, municipalities, and non-governmental organisations, to implement afforestation, rehabilitation and erosion control measures, resulting in the afforestation and reforestation of 1.5 Mha (Yurtoglu 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1353|1353]]</sup> ). Moreover, some 1.75 Mha of degraded forest and 37,880 ha of degraded rangelands were rehabilitated. Finally, the project provided employment opportunities for 300,000 rural residents for six months every year, combining land restoration and rehabilitation activities with measures to promote socio-economic development in rural areas (Çalişkan and Boydak 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1354|1354]]</sup> ).

'''Investing in research and development.''' Desertification has received substantial research attention over recent decades (Turner et al. 2007 <sup>[[#fn:r1355|1355]]</sup> ). There is also a growing research interest on climate change adaptation and mitigation interventions that help address desertification (Grainger 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r1356|1356]]</sup> ). Agricultural research on SLM practices has generated a significant number of new innovations and technologies that increase crop yields without degrading the land, while contributing to climate change adaptation and mitigation (Section 3.6.1). There is ''robust evidence'' that such technologies help improve the food security of smallholder dryland farming households (Harris and Orr 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1357|1357]]</sup> ) (Section 6.3.5). Strengthening research on desertification is of high importance not only to meet SDGs but also to manage ecosystems effectively, based on solid scientific knowledge. More investment in research institutes and training the younger generation of researchers is needed for addressing the combined challenges of desertification and climate change (Akhtar-Schuster et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1358|1358]]</sup> ; Verstraete et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1359|1359]]</sup> ). This includes improved knowledge management systems that allow stakeholders to work in a coordinated manner by enhancing timely, targeted and contextualised information sharing (Chasek et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1360|1360]]</sup> ). Knowledge and flow of knowledge on desertification is currently highly fragmented, constraining the effectiveness of those engaged in assessing and monitoring the phenomenon at various levels (Reed et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1361|1361]]</sup> ). Improved knowledge and data exchange and sharing increase the effectiveness of efforts to address desertification ( ''high confidence'' ).

'''Developing modern renewable energy sources.''' Transitioning to renewable energy resources contributes to reducing desertification by lowering reliance on traditional biomass in dryland regions ( ''medium confidence'' ). This can also have socioeconomic and health benefits, especially for women and children ( ''high confidence'' ). Populations in most developing countries continue to rely on traditional biomass, including fuelwood, crop straws and livestock manure, for a major share of their energy needs, with the highest dependence in Sub-Saharan Africa (Amugune et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1363|1363]]</sup> ; IEA 2013). Use of biomass for energy, mostly fuelwood (especially as charcoal), was associated with deforestation in some dryland areas (Iiyama et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1364|1364]]</sup> ; Mekuria et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1365|1365]]</sup> ; Neufeldt et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1366|1366]]</sup> ; Zulu 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1367|1367]]</sup> ), while in some other areas there was no link between fuelwood collection and deforestation (Simon and Peterson 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1368|1368]]</sup> ; Swemmer et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1369|1369]]</sup> ; Twine and Holdo 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1370|1370]]</sup> ). Moreover, the use of traditional biomass as a source of energy was found to have negative health effects through indoor air pollution (de la Sota et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1371|1371]]</sup> ; Lim and Seow 2012), while also being associated with lower female labour force participation (Burke and Dundas 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1372|1372]]</sup> ). Jiang et al. (2014) indicated that providing improved access to alternative energy sources such as solar energy and biogas could help reduce the use of fuelwood in south-western China, thus alleviating the spread of rocky desertification. The conversion of degraded lands into cultivation of biofuel crops will affect soil carbon dynamics (Albanito et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1374|1374]]</sup> ; Nair et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1375|1375]]</sup> ) (Cross-Chapter Box 7 in Chapter 6). The use of biogas slurry as soil amendment or fertiliser can increase soil carbon (Galvez et al. 2012; Negash et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1376|1376]]</sup> ). Large-scale installation of wind and solar farms in the Sahara Desert was projected to create a positive climate feedback through increased surface friction and reduced albedo, doubling precipitation over the neighbouring Sahel region with resulting increases in vegetation (Li et al. 2018). Transition to renewable energy sources in high-income countries in dryland areas primarily contributes to reducing GHG emissions and mitigating climate change, with some other co-benefits such as diversification of energy sources (Bang 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1377|1377]]</sup> ), while the impacts on desertification are less evident. The use of renewable energy has been proposed as an important mitigation option in dryland areas as well (El-Fadel et al. 2003 <sup>[[#fn:r1378|1378]]</sup> ). Transitions to renewable energy are being promoted by governments across drylands (Cancino-Solórzano et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1379|1379]]</sup> ; Hong et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1380|1380]]</sup> ; Sen and Ganguly 2017) including in fossil-fuel rich countries (Farnoosh et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1381|1381]]</sup> ; Dehkordi et al. 2017; Stambouli et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1382|1382]]</sup> ; Vidadili et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1383|1383]]</sup> ), despite important social, political and technical barriers to expanding renewable energy production (Afsharzade et al. 2016; Baker et al. 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1384|1384]]</sup> ; Elum and Momodu 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1385|1385]]</sup> ; Karatayev et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1386|1386]]</sup> ). Improving social awareness about the benefits of transitioning to renewable energy resources, and access to hydro-energy, solar and wind energy contributes to their improved adoption (Aliyu et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1387|1387]]</sup> ; Katikiro 2016).

'''Developing and strengthening climate services relevant for desertification.''' Climate services provide climate, drought and desertification-related information in a way that assists decision-making by individuals and organisations. Monitoring desertification, and integrating biogeophysical (climate, soil, ecological factors, biodiversity) and socio-economic (use of natural resources by local population) issues provide a basis for better vulnerability prediction and assessment (OSS, 2012; Vogt et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1388|1388]]</sup> ). Examples of relevant services include: drought monitoring and early warning systems, often implemented by national climate and meteorological services but also encompassing regional and global systems (Pozzi et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1389|1389]]</sup> ); and the Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS), created by WMO in 2007, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Currently, there is also a lack of ecological monitoring in arid and semi-arid regions to study surface winds, dust and sand storms, and their impacts on ecosystems and human health (Bergametti et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1390|1390]]</sup> ; Marticorena et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1391|1391]]</sup> ). Reliable and timely climate services, relevant to desertification, can aid the development of appropriate adaptation and mitigation options, reducing the impact of desertification under changing climate on human and natural systems ( ''high confidence'' ) (Beegum et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1392|1392]]</sup> ; Beegum et al. 2018; Cornet 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1393|1393]]</sup> ; Haase et al. 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1395|1395]]</sup> ; Sergeant et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1396|1396]]</sup> ).

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