Summary of proceedings for Rio Conventions Pavilion UNCCD COP 12 - 14 October 2015: Day for Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Sustainable Land Managers
Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 12:07PM 
Organised by UNDP’s Equator Initiative and its network of partners, the day was dedicated to highlighting the experience of local communities that demonstrate sustainable development in practice.
The morning session began early with a dialogue and knowledge exchange among winners of the Equator Prize, including those who participated in the WIN Dialogues. During the morning’s conversations, the challenge of scaling up efforts within regions and between communities was a shared perspective. The importance of developing good relationships with local and national state agencies was seen as important. Transboundary coordination was another common theme, with groups noting how communities in different countries had to find common strategies even as they faced different governments. The need for the donor community to harmonise its reporting and project management requirements was a shared suggestion.
The morning session “Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Implementation of the Rio Conventions: Combating Desertification, Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss Post-2015” brought together representatives of the UNCCD, UNFCCC and CBD secretariat, with representatives of local communities from Kenya and Ghana. The presentations showed how the objectives of all three environmental conventions are inter-related. The discussions focused on how local community actions in favour of sustainable livelihoods in areas of ecotourism, animal rearing and handicrafts can be a practical and concrete way to create sustainable development.
Over lunchtime, participants took an in-depth look at the “The Better Land Use Better Future for All” project implemented by UNDP’s Equator Initiative, OSISA and ENDA Tiers Monde. The project had the goal of improving socio economic development of sub-Saharan Africa through sustainable land management. The project goal was to empower organizations, scale up their efforts and improve the power of grassroots organizations. Participants to the meeting hope for greater civil society organization participation will take place at the national level and within the context of the UNCCD process. The session ended with a call by several participants for the UNCCD process to recognise and support these community initiatives as a means to support implementation of the UNCCD.
The afternoon panel on “Building Resilience in Dryland Ecosystems” explored a number of projects by Equator Prize winners. Presentations on projects from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Togo showed that a landscape approach appears to be the best way forward as it allowed the projects to address the multidimensional nature of building resilience. The projects showed that learning and research were key to project design, while diversification of agricultural systems is an important component as well. Further, it is obvious that the government policy environment is an extremely important determinant for success. Above all, the projects showed that communities can build resilience when a multistakeholder approach is used.
The closing panel for the day addressed food insecurity and looked at examples of the best sustainable land management practices which strengthened community livelihoods. Presentations of projects from Chad, Niger, South Africa and Niger showed the importance of mixing science with local traditional knowledge. They also highlighted the overwhelmingly important role of women in building food security. For all four case studies, the conclusion emerged that women’s improved access to land, markets and technology lead to improved agricultural production and better community livelihoods.
As the sun set, the day closed with the launch of the book “Stories of Resilience: Lessons from sub-Saharan Drylands Communities.” The 15 stories in the book, drawn from the experiences of Equator Prize winners, match the story of each community with policy recommendations. The stories show how local efforts in building resilience can help build national sustainable development goals and contribute to land degradation neutrality (LDN).
