The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is one of the three conventions agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. But from the very outset it has led a marginal existence, because industrialized countries feel far less concerned with desertification than developing countries. Moreover, the Convention?s targets are not binding and are open to a variety of interpretations by the Parties.The conflicting interests of environmental and
development policy are weakening its position further.

Since 1996, the Centres for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics of the Universities of Hohenheim and Göttingen and of Berlin's Humboldt University have organised a conference, the ''Tropentag'', once a year to present and discuss recent findings in research on agriculture and rural development. Other universities, like Kassel-Witzenhausen, have joined in, and the number of participants, papers and posters presented has more than doubled.

The devastating tsunami has shown in a tragic way the great vulnerability and exposed nature of coastal communities to natural calamities. It also has drawn global attention to the poor living conditions of fishing communities and the many threats to the sustainable use of fishery resources and coastal ecosystems. Post-tsunami rehabilitation offers the opportunity to build back better, improve and make more secure the lives of disadvantaged sections of the population and set fisheries and coastal resource use on a sustainable footing.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment projects that the intensification of freshwater scarcity in combination with continuous water extraction from delicate dryland ecosystems is likely to exacerbate desertification, thus leading to a downward spiral of ecological deterioration and a precarious depreciation of livelihoods in many developing regions. This in turn can push people to migrate, which can have far reaching implications affecting local, regional, and even global political and economic stability.

Rural areas are not exempted from the impacts of globalisation. Global trends affecting agriculture are particularly significant in this respect. A number of options are available to developing countries in responding to these trends. Given the scarcity of resources it is important that they choose carefully. If they fail to respond, rural areas will become even more marginalized than they are already.

Desertification is nowhere more serious than in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), stretching from Pakistan in the east to Morocco in the west, and from Ethiopia and Sudan in the south to Turkey in the north. Yet, many MENA countries have successfully rehabilitated large areas. Concerted efforts can indeed stop and even reverse desertification, though their long-term success will depend on how well they manage their limited water resources.

The economy of the Amazon region relies heavily on water for transport and livelihoods. Important also for the regional water cycle, the Amazon ecosystems are threatened by climate change, although there is little knowledge about the likelihood of adverse events and potentially related vulnerabilities. Therefore research and building up capacities for collective action are cornerstones of adaptation to climate change. Since 2008, strategic policy approaches have emerged. The region has only started to prepare itself for the things to come.

More than 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas.The World Bank's approach to rural development is holistic and multisectoral, focused on improving the wellbeing of rural people by building their productive, social, and environmental assets. The author of this article explores what this means in the longer term horizon of beyond 2015.

Hardest hit by desertification is Sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty is more widespread, preparedness for catastrophe is lower, and means for adequately coping with the phenomenon are very weak; two thirds of the arable land will be lost by 2025.The subcontinent needs improved integrated initiatives on local, national und multinational level for a sustainable natural resources management. Environmental Information systems can increase awareness and throw light on decision making processes on the complexity of desertification badly needed by most African countries.

Water and soils are increasingly becoming a limiting resource for meeting the food requirements
of a growing world population. Integrated concepts for managing natural resources in a sustainable
and environmentally sound manner show encouraging impacts, if applied on a large scale and
over a long period like in Tigray, the northernmost regional state of Ethiopia.

Despite ambitious desertification control programmes, the area of desertified land has expanded continuously since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, with increasingly serious impacts on important industrial and settlement areas. Only in the new millennium is a reversal of this trend in sight.

Water is scarce in India's semiarid zones of Rajasthan. Climate change is putting additional pressure on the rare resources. Irregular or no rainfall forces many small farmers to abandon their fields, at least temporarily, and seek work in the towns. Participative water management projects as practiced in Bhipur village, growing crops with low water requirements and more sustainable farming practices are adaptation strategies that allow farmers to continue their activities despite climate risks.