Guidelines: developing integrated financing strategies for Sustainable Land Management : an introduction for least developed countries and small islands developing states

Sustainable land management is recognized as a potential foundation of poverty reduction and sustainable development. In many cases, achieving sustainable land management or correcting unsustainable land use practices requires broad-based reforms, policy changes that reach beyond the scope of traditional environmental policy-making, as well as targeted interventions that yield immediate results. Despite the breadth and depth of the challenge faced by most developing countries, the resources invested in implementing policies and programmes for sustainable land management remain insufficient. In fact, the issue of resource mobilization for sustainable land management has been recognized as one of the major hurdles to achieving policy goals in most developing countries. Countries have been faced with sectoral policies, plans and programmes, including National Action Programmes (NAPs) under the UNCCD, which lacked grounding in broader country frameworks, and therefore went un-implemented.