International cooperation for sustainable land and water management

International, regional, and private cooperation in natural resource management has increased over the past few decades. This trend was driven by the realization that the benefits of natural resource management and the costs of their degradation transcend international borders. Climate change, air and water pollution, globalization, increasing competition over natural resources resulting from population and economic growth and other global changes have also driven cooperation in natural resource management. Despite these significant achievements, international and regional cooperation is still faced with a number of challenges. These include limited compliance with conventions and international laws, limited funding support for regional and international initiatives, and the slow progress in implementing the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness, which supports the implementation of international cooperation on L&W. There are signs of increased non-cooperation and mistrust at the regional and international levels, which is a result of national unilateral actions in response to the food price crisis, the ongoing stalemate of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round, and unilateral biofuel policies and international land leases and purchases by several countries. This article is available at: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/solaw/files/thematic_reports/TR_16_web.pdf