Ribeira Seca, Santiago, Cape Verde

The DESIRE gender plan shows gender issues in the institute as well as in the study sites. It makes gender issues visible with a yearly monitor. Therefore a questionnaire is used in the research institutes of the partners where in the study site monitor questions are being asked to produce a gender poster.

DESIRE’s study site gender posters show that changes through the new land use management bring time and possibilities for women and men. This means not a self evident process towards gender equality. For gender equality it is important to keep both men and women informed about monitoring systems, technological developments, health, education and funding opportunities.

An interview with Isaurinda Baptista, scientific manager of INIDA, DESIRE’s partner organization in Cape Verde illustrates gender in the study site, the Ribeira Seca basin.  (

The Gender reports (for years 1, 2 and 3 including all study site gender posters) are available

as downloads in: Download > Project Documents (public) > Gender

(c) Chetan Soni

Fortaleza (Brazil) / Nairobi, 16 August 2010 - The United Nations is launching the Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification (2010-2020) today, an 11-year long effort to raise awareness and action to improve the protection and management of the world's drylands, home to a third of the world's population and which face serious economic and environmental threats.

"Continued land degradation - whether from climate change, unsustainable agriculture or poor management of water resources - is a threat to food security, leading to starvation among the most acutely affected communities and robbing the world of productive land," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a statement announcing the launch. More info HERE