ZEF at second Global Soil Week in Berlin
November 21, 2013.
ZEF and IFPRI co-organized a session on "How to mobilize societal change to address land degradation and reduce poverty in the developing world: the role of local policy actions?" during the Second Global Soil Week in Berlin on October 30, 2013.
Participants
Around 40 participants from research and academia, public and non-governmental organizations, and the media attended ZEF's session. Presentations were made on the on-going research on Economics of Land Degradation by ZEF and partner-institutions with an emphasis on exploring the drivers of land degradation and local policies for stimulating investments and social change towards addressing land degradation.
Topics
Based on ground-level country case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, the speakers explored the challenges and opportunities for intensifying local societal change and policy action towards addressing land degradation and reducing poverty in developing countries.
Outcome
The session raised awareness about causes, as well as social and private costs of land degradation. The pathways for incorporating the case study results in the currently on-going national and regional action programs were discussed. The peer-reviewed methodological ZEF Discussion Paper no. 183 on the guiding the national case studies on Economics of Land Degradation was also released during the event.