亚行目前正在管理一个由全球环境基金（GEF）提供部分资金的，总额为1380万美元的项目，来支持中国西部6个欠发达省/区实施土地退化防治工作。
中国西部共有12个省市自治区，总人口超过2.85亿，其中不少属于最为贫困和最缺乏生存条件的人口。西部地区的少数民族也较多。在贫困和土地退化之间存在着非常紧密的联系。
中国所面临的土地退化问题在世界范围内都非常严重，超过40%的国土面积都受到风蚀、盐碱化和沙漠化的影响。
而人类活动还在加剧土地退化的趋势，这对社会和经济有着深远的影响，将会导致许多农村地区的家庭收入下降和贫困情况恶化，失业率上升，以及人口迁移率增加。
土地退化也威胁到西部地区的生物多样性，使得该地区丰富的独有物种资源不断减少。同时，土地退化还是产生沙尘暴的主要原因，沙尘暴不仅困扰着中国北方和西北地区，还给日本和韩国也造成了影响。
该项目将加强有关机构和政府部门的机构能力建设，并采取一个参与式、科学、全面的方法来解决土地退化问题。根据全球环境基金和中国达成的有关旱地生态系统土地退化的合作协议，目前启动的项目是到2012年的总金额达15亿美元的10年期项目规划的第一步工作。该合作规划是在亚行技术援助资金的支持下完成的，并于2002年10月得到了全球环境基金理事会的批准。
全球环境基金计划为上述规划提供大约1.5亿美元的赠款援助，用于通过能力建设投资和开展一系列示范投资项目来防治土地退化，扶贫和保持生物多样性。
“土地退化防治能力建设”项目是亚行在土地退化防治领域的第一个项目，全球环境基金为该项目提供了770万美元的赠款。亚行也为该项目提供了100万美元的技术援助赠款，用于加强机构间的协调，以及项目和整个规划的监控与评估。此外，中国政府亦将为该技援投入约合630万美元的支持，其中330万美元的资金投入。
项目将在分别在国家机构和受土地退化影响最为严重的6个省区实施旱地综合生态环境治理，具体包括甘肃、内蒙古、宁夏、青海、陕西和新疆。这6个省区的人口合计1.17亿。项目将强化机构能力，改善政策质量和监管环境、规划机制、项目设计能力，以及监控和评估技能。
亚行驻中国代表处的一位高级项目专家，布鲁斯·卡罗德先生（Bruce Carrad）表示，“初步工作将用于确保在该合作项下的投资能够对贫困农村社区和各个较小少数民族产生最大的效果，因为他们是受土地退化影响最严重的人群。”
全球环境基金主要为解决气候变化、生物多样性、国际海域、臭氧层破坏、土地退化和持久性有机污染等领域的全球环境问题提供赠款和条件优惠的贷款。
根据亚行上周批准的一份修订后的同全球环境基金的谅解备忘录，本项目是第一个亚行可以直接运用全球环境基金的项目资源的项目。今后亚行就可以确定、准备、评估和承担全球环境基金的项目，直接从该基金的托管人处得到项目融资，并直接负责资金的使用。该项目也是亚行的第一个“混血”项目：所需资金完全由赠款提供，但是却按照贷款程序来进行筹备和管理，从而实现更有效的项目准备、监督，并使政府履行更多的责任。
原文如下：
ADB Administering GEF-Backed Project to Combat Land Degradation
in Western PRC
MANILA, PHILIPPINES (29 June 2004) - ADB is administering a US$13.8 million project, partly funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), to help combat land degradation in six priority provinces and autonomous regions of the impoverished western region of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
The western region, comprising 12 provinces and autonomous regions, supports a population of more than 285 million, including many of the country's poorest and most vulnerable people, and is very ethnically diverse. There is a strong correlation between poverty and land degradation.
The country faces some of the world's most serious land degradation problems, with more than 40% of its land area increasingly affected by wind erosion, salinization, and desertification.
Human activities are accelerating the problem, which has profound social and economic consequences, including lower household incomes and increased poverty in many rural communities, higher unemployment rates, and higher migration rates.
The degradation is also threatening biodiversity in a region rich in endemic species and is a major source of dust storms that affect not only the north and northwest of the PRC, but also Japan and the Republic of Korea.
The project, which will strengthen institutions, government agencies and develop a participatory, scientific and comprehensive approach to dealing with land degradation, is the first step in a $1.5 billion 10-year program to 2012 under a GEF-PRC Partnership on Land Degradation in Dryland Ecosystems. The Partnership was designed with ADB assistance and was approved by the GEF Council in October 2002.
GEF plans to provide about $150 million in grant assistance for the Partnership program, which will combat land degradation, reduce poverty, and conserve biodiversity through capacity building investments and developing a series of model investment projects.
For the first ADB project in this series, Capacity Building to Combat Land Degradation, GEF is providing a grant of $7.7 million. ADB is providing a technical assistance grant of US$1 million to complement the project work, strengthen interagency coordination, and monitor and evaluate the project and the overall program. The Government will finance a total package of about $6.3 million, of which $3.3 million will be in cash.
The project will work at the central level and in the six provinces and/or autonomous regions with the worst dryland degradation in the country - Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui, Qinghai, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang Uygur with a combined population of 117 million - to address integrated ecosystem management of drylands. It will boost institutional capacity, improve the quality of the policy and regulatory environment, planning mechanisms, project design capacity, and monitoring and evaluation skills.
"This preliminary work will ensure that the investments planned under the Partnership have the maximum impact on the poor rural communities and diverse ethnic minority groups that are most affected by land degradation," says Bruce Carrad, a Principal Project Specialist at ADB's Resident Mission in the PRC.
GEF provides grants and concessionary resources for projects that address global environmental issues in the focal areas of climate change, biodiversity, international waters, ozone depletion, land degradation, and persistent organic pollutants.
This is the first project under which ADB has direct access to GEF project resources, under a revised Memorandum of Understanding with GEF approved by ADB last week. This new access now allows ADB to identify, prepare, appraise and undertake GEF projects, receive project financing directly from the GEF Trustee, and be directly accountable for the use of funds. It is also ADB's first "hybrid" project: financed totally by grants but prepared and administered through loan procedures that provide for more intensive preparation, supervision and responsibility by Government.
