21 March 2018 – Ankara, Turkey – The Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs has embarked on the second “Mobilization for afforestation” campaign. 23 million households across Turkey will receive a letter signed by the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, asking the recipients to plant the seeds to…

The new UNCCD weblog is designed for scientists, experts, practitioners, policy-makers and journalists to share their insights, expertise and ideas with other UNCCD stakeholders. It is also a means for the UNCCD to reach out to the general public and promote specific issues of interest in an…

Under the theme "Sahel: cap vers une agriculture familiale, Comment assurer une valorisation des potentiels locaux?, Quelles coalitions d'acteurs pour bâtir avec les communautés un avenir durable?" the NGO SOS Sahel will organize the second edition of the Africa Days in Dakar, Senegal on 4-5 May…

11 April 2018 – Bonn, Germany – The first intersessional meeting of the COP 13 Bureau gathered in Bonn to take stock of the progress towards implementing decisions taken at the UNCCD COP13 in Ordos, China. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Wu Zhimin, Director General of the Department of International…

The following three candidates are suitable for the elections to become the alternate CSO representative to the SPI: Noel Oettle/Environment Monitoring Group/South Africa: presentation | application form Surya Narayana Reddy/Grameena Vikas Samithi/India: presentation | application form Pradeep…

18 April 2018 – Bonn, Germany – Mr. Juan Carlos Mendoza has been appointed as Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD. The appointment was announced by the UNCCD Executive Secretary, Ms. Monique Barbut, who expressed her confidence in the new Managing Director who took up his duties…

16 April 2018 – Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco – The UNCCD Regional Coordination Unit for Africa has started working from its new location in Morocco. The Unit Coordinator Mr. Boubacar Cissé, who was previously based in the UNCCD headquarters in Bonn, will lead the unit team, developed through…

18 April 2018 – Santiago, Chile – A side event on land degradation neutrality, organized by the UNCCD regional coordination unit, took place in the margins of the Second meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) on the Sustainable Development. The program of the…

19 April 2018, London – The Deputy Executive Secretary Pradeep Monga represented UNCCD at the Climate Change event during the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Speaking about priorities for land-related climate action, Mr. Monga stressed that achieving common well-being takes on a new…

23 April, 2018 – Santiago, Chile – The UNCCD Regional coordination unit (RCU) for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in partnership with the embassy of Ecuador in Chile organized an event to commemorate the Earth Day and launch the World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD) campaign that will…

24 April, 2018 – New Delhi, India – Delegates from the states of India, ministerial representatives and the chairman of The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) participated in the opening session of the UNCCD Asia Pacific regional workshop on PRAIS reporting, chaired by the Minister of Environment…

Fourteen countries, from all regions, in different ecological and socio-economic conditions, were at the forefront of this exciting experiment.Some of the biggest lessons learned from the pilot and the recommendations for the UN SDG process are showcased in this publication. We found that land…

The UNCCD Secretariat and the Global Mechanism, in collaboration with a dozen bilateral and multilateral partners are supporting countries on the LDN target setting journey. The building blocks of this journey presented here are the result of extensive discussions with country Parties and…

The exhibition entitled “Save the Earth, Save the Land” was opened at UN Headquarters on 28 September 2016. In his opening remarks, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stressed the urgent need to address the causes and consequences of drought, desertification, and land degradation (DLDD) which…

How can the UNCCD Parties and other stakeholders build on their achievements on empowering women to make an even stronger impact? In the eve of the 15th session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC15), the members of the civil society organizations exchanged…

“Ignoring land degradation neutrality (LDN) could be political suicide,” said Monique Barbut, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), emphasizing the real benefits populations will feel in terms of climate change, rural employment and food security…

The fifteenth session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 15) concluded on 20 October with great strides to refine the direction of the Convention’s strategic future. At the closing of the session, the UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut expressed hope…

This brochure highlights the impact of current droughts as well as presenting projections for the future. It strongly suggests that overcoming the prevailing paradigm of ‘reactive’ and ‘crisis-based’ approaches to drought and moving towards ‘proactive’ and ‘risk-based’ approaches will be…

Land in Balance is a science-policy brief prepared by the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface (SPI). It gives an overview of the scientific conceptual framework for land degradation neutrality (LDN). The conceptual framework creates a common understanding of the LDN objective and consistency in…

Achieving LDN requires a paradigm shift in land stewardship: from ‘degrade-abandon-migrate’ to ‘protect-sustain-restore’. This is the rationale that underpins the LDN Target Setting Programme that became operational in spring 2016. Through this programme, the UNCCD’s operational arm — the Global…

Africa is growing a real wonder of the world. The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel could play a decisive role in the future of the African continent. The Sahel region is one of the most arid and most vulnerable places on earth. Food, water and economic opportunity are often scarce. The…

The conclusion of the preamble to “transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” stresses the importance of the linkages and integrated nature of the global Goals in realizing the 2030 Agenda. To meet the SDGs, it will be vital to manage these linkages, to harness synergies…

In this brochure, we set out the case for the full implementation of goal 15 “Life on Land”. In particular, we highlight how UNCCD Parties are working together to achieve target 15.3 on land degradation neutrality (LDN). At this stage, we are losing around 12 million hectares of land each year. We…

With an expected 9.5 billion people living on earth by 2050, population pressure, higher consumer expectations and climate change will tax and degrade our natural resource base, especially the land. Land degradation puts the livelihoods of billions of people at risk. It threatens the future…

Desertification is a silent, invisible crisis that is destabilizing communities on a global scale. As the effects of climate change undermine livelihoods, inter-ethnic clashes are breaking out within and across states and fragile states are turning to militarization to control the situation. The…