“It will be impossible to halve the world’s poverty and hunger by 2015 unless life is improved for the poor people of the drylands,”

claims a new study titled The Forgotten Billion to be released at the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York, next week. "The study, which maps the ‘forgotten billion’ drylands inhabitants from a natural endowments perspective, finds similar patterns at both the global and national levels. “In certain regions, human well-being, particularly female adult literacy and child mortality, decline in parallel with the aridity gradient,” which is related to water scarcity, according to the study jointly published by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (...)

The article:
http://www.unccd.int/media/pressrel/showpressrel.php?pr=press17_09_10

The paper:
http://www.unccd.int/media/docs/Forgotten%20Billion.pdf

A technology valid in every arid zone of the planet:
http://www.vallerani.com/vallerani_eng/index.htm

The UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight Against Desertification:

http://unddd.unccd.int/

An international meeting in Rome:

http://www.fidaf.it/index.php/news/eventi/desertificazione-a-roma-conferenza-scientifica-internazionale-promossa-dallenea.html