On the invitation of the Mayor of Bonn, Ms. Bärbel Dieckmann, the Second World Forum of Mayors on Cities and Desertification took place in Bonn on June 11th and 12th, 1999. Desertification is assuming ever more threatening proportions worldwide; with a view to controlling and resolving the resulting problems, cities and municipal authorities are desperately looking for support on the basis of an exchange of experience and cooperation.

The United Nations have taken an interest in the subject and the UNCCD-Secretariat with its head office in Bonn was one of the driving forces behind this special-subject conference.

The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung supported this Forum in various ways, including six case studies in English, French and Spanish which represented 2 countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America respectively. The six studies still describe the prevailing situation and have therefore been collected in this brochure in English in order to make them available to a larger public.

In so doing, it is our intention to ensure that greater attention is being paid to this important issue which superficially may appear to concern the regions only. But as a matter of fact, desertification concerns us all and thus represents a crucial problem in global development policy.