The role of regions under the UNCCD Five world regions – Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Northern Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe - have the important job of deciding how to implement the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The Convention Text…

Mandate In line with Article 24 of the UNCCD, the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) is established as a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to provide it with information and advice on scientific and technological matters relating to combating desertification and…

Switchboard Tel: 00 49 228 815 2800 Email: secretariat [at] unccd.int Postal Address UNITED NATIONS Convention to Combat Desertification UNCCD Secretariat P.O. Box 260129 D-53153 Bonn, Germany Office Location UNCCD Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1 D-53113 Bonn, Germany CSO contact CSO [at] unccd.int 00 49 228…

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development puts a strong emphasis on the integrated approach to achieving SDGs that can harness synergies and minimize potential trade-offs. Land can play an important part in accelerating the achievement of many SDGs. Maintaining and restoring land resources can…

Mandate The Global Mechanism (GM) was established under Article 21 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to assist countries in the mobilization of financial resources to implement the Convention and address desertification, land degradation and drought. What We Do As an…

Figure 1. The structure and functioning of managed and unmanaged ecosystems that affect local, regional and global climate.Source: IPCC, 2019 Land is fundamentally linked to both climate change mitigation and adaptation. The land-use sector has great potential to reduce emissions, sequester carbon…

Land and soil degradation undermine the security and development of all countries. The geo-political and security challenges we face are complex. But by better implementing good land management practices, we can simultaneously help populations adapt to climate change and build resilience to drought…

Fresh water is a vital and defining feature for sustainable development. Globally, over two billion people live in countries that experience high water stress (UN-Water 2019 from UN, 2018). Other estimates are even more pessimistic, with up to four billion people – over half the population of the…

What is Desertification? Desertification is not the natural expansion of existing deserts but the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas. It is a gradual process of soil productivity loss and the thinning out of the vegetative cover because of human activities and climatic…

Established in 1994, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the…

Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) has been defined by the Parties to the Convention as: A state whereby the amount and quality of land resources, necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales…

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…

Monitoring and evaluation refers to evidence-based measurement of the achievement of planned results. It enables a timely recognition and correction of problems in delivering a given task, and the identification of successful practices that can be strengthened and replicated. Monitoring and…

Mandate The permanent secretariat of the Convention was established in Article 23 of the UNCCD. It has been located in Bonn, Germany since January 1999. In line with Article 23 of the UNCCD, the key function of the secretariat is to service the sessions of the COP and its subsidiary bodies. This…

102 countries have already committed to translating the global Land Degradation Neutrality target into country-specific targets and actions that generate multiple benefits: from climate change mitigation and adaptation to zero hunger; from ensuring access to clean water to creating decent work and…

“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…