The Oasis initiative to combat desertification and dryland degradation organized a global workshop during 20-22 August hosted by CIRAD and IRD at the CIRAD campus in Montpellier, France. The workshop strengthened global partnerships while developing a pre-proposal for CGIAR Challenge Programme consideration. Sixty-one participants from 24 countries participated.

Oasis answers the global call for greater scientific input embodied in the Articles of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Oasis will engage with the UNCCD mechanisms such as the Committee on Science and Technology and National Action Plans to strengthen the world’s ability to meet the threat of desertification and land degradation more effectively than in the past.

ICARDA and ICRISAT jointly catalyze the Oasis initiative on behalf of the Alliance of CGIAR Centers. Six partner groups from beyond the CGIAR have now joined the Alliance partners as co-proponents of Oasis, making it a truly global initiative:

• CIRAD and IRD;

• The European Consortium for Agricultural Research in the Tropics (ECART);

• The European Commission’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC);

• European DesertNet; and

• The Sahel-Sahara Observatory (OSS).

Ten CGIAR Centers are involved in Oasis: Bioversity, CIAT, CIMMYT, ICARDA, ICRISAT, IFPRI, ILRI, IWMI, WARDA, and the World Agroforestry Centre.

Participation of developing-country partners in the pre-proposal workshop was made possible by contributions from the Belgian Development Cooperation (DGCD) - Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Co-operation; the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) through the DURAS project supported by the Government of France, and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada). CIRAD/IRD and ICRISAT/ICARDA also contributed hosting and organizing resources.

Holistic approach

The Oasis pre-proposal advocates a break from past approaches to dryland degradation and desertification, which too often fell short of expectations. The approach advocated by Oasis partners is to view land degradation and desertification as a sustainable development problem rather than simply a biophysical problem to be treated through centralized government decrees ordering land users to change their practices. Too often such past practices were not adoptable because they did not take land users’ needs for secure and prosperous livelihoods into account. The Oasis motto is “building lives, saving lands”, recognizing that neither secure livelihoods, nor environmental protection can be achieved without addressing both at the same time.

To address this sustainable development problem, Oasis partners advocated co-learning with land users from the beginning, to understand their motivations and constraints. This ensures that the right issues and bottlenecks in “development pathways” are tackled, leading to adoptable solutions. By interconnecting relevant institutions from the community to the national and international scales, the co-learning approach overcomes past stumbling blocks such as policies being out of step with the needs of land users or unintentionally encouraging the degradation of drylands, and the impoverishment of their inhabitants.

Knowledge streams

Oasis defined six facets of integrated knowledge generation that could contribute to breakthroughs on land degradation and desertification. In addition to co-learning and development pathways, the other four “knowledge streams” focus on understanding and assessing and causes of dryland degradation and desertification; rationalizing policy, market and institutional forces; making more efficient, productive and sustainable use of land, soil, water and biodiversity resources; and building more remunerative livelihood options that motivate land users to adopt sustainable practices.

Next steps

The Oasis pre-proposal will be submitted by the Alliance to the CGIAR in early September for consideration in the coming months by the CGIAR’s Science Council and Executive Council. If approved, a full proposal would be developed in 2008 leading to a formal launching of the new Challenge Programme.