As IEG marked World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought earlier this month, we spoke with Bekele Ambaye Shiferaw, who spent much of his long career focused on environmental degradation and how to stop it. Along with describing his journey to the Independent Evaluation Group, after a 25-year career in development, Bekele spoke to us about the importance of addressing the nexus between natural resource degradation and threats to human development, and the way forward.