JOURNAL

This session marks the opening of the Business4Land programme and will explore the role of businesses, governments and financial institutions in accelerating investment for land restoration during the Triple COP year. It will highlight different perspectives on addressing the global land financing gap, showcase private sector engagement through the Business4Land initiative, and examine policy and financial frameworks that support investment in sustainable land management.

This flagship event will showcase Mongolia's National Green Lab as a platform for advancing a pipeline of bankable rangeland restoration projects. Featuring selected projects from the National Green Lab's inaugural cohort, the session will bring together project developers, investors, and policymakers to accelerate technology-driven resource management, sustainable value chains, and ecosystem restoration, while launching the National Green Lab Investors' Network.

This second session of the Business4Land programme will explore how business transformation, finance and advocacy can support large-scale land restoration through science-based targets, investor-focused soil health data and land-related reporting frameworks. It will showcase experiences from businesses, investors and national stakeholders on aligning corporate action with land restoration objectives and strengthening the information and accountability systems that underpin investment in sustainable land management.

The session will focus on showcasing delivery at scale by highlighting concrete results and lessons from the Sahel and the emerging SADC GGW investment program under the continental framework. The event will also mobilize finance and partnerships and will strengthen policy and financing coherence by positioning the GGW as Africa’s principal platform for nature-based solutions, climate adaptation, ecosystem restoration, and green jobs.

This third session of the Business4Land programme will explore how businesses, financial
institutions and development partners can work together to scale investment in land restoration and drought resilience. It will highlight experiences from land-positive value chains, innovative financing instruments and risk-management approaches, while showcasing emerging frameworks, partnerships and initiatives that support the development of investable land restoration projects.

With USD 355 billion needed annually to restore degraded land and build drought resilience — against just USD 77 billion currently mobilized — multilateral development banks are pivotal to closing the gap. This session brings together leadership from the world's leading MDBs and DFIs to showcase how blended finance, guarantees, and innovative investment vehicles are de-risking land restoration and turning pledges into bankable projects at scale. Speakers will share concrete instruments and partnerships translating COP17 commitments into investable pipelines — and outline what's needed from governments and the private sector to accelerate the shift from ambition to implementation.

Bringing together industry leaders, governments, Indigenous representatives, and international partners, this high-level Mining Forum will explore how the mining sector can drive sustainable land management, ecosystem restoration, and resilient landscapes. The forum will examine key challenges and opportunities in balancing mineral development with the protection of land, nature, and local communities, while showcasing innovative approaches to responsible mining and postmining landscape restoration.

The Fashion4Land Forum will bring together stakeholders from across the fashion value chain to explore the links between innovation, natural fibers and sustainable land management. The session will feature discussions on youth-led innovation and design, followed by a session examining the role of wool and other natural fibers in building more sustainable and resilient fashion systems. Together, these sessions will highlight practical opportunities to scale sustainable solutions and strengthen climate and land stewardship across the sector.

This high-level side event will explore the future of financing for land restoration and drought resilience in the context of evolving international finance architecture and growing investment needs. Convened as a roundtable discussion, it will bring together multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, public development banks and other financial partners to examine innovative financing approaches, discuss challenges and opportunities in mobilizing capital at scale, and explore the application of emerging frameworks for financing sustainable land use and resilience.

This ministerial will explore the links between land degradation, drought resilience, peace, security and human mobility, bringing together leaders from environment, foreign affairs, defence, interior and migration portfolios. It will examine how land restoration and sustainable natural resource management can contribute to resilience and stability, while highlighting experiences and perspectives on addressing vulnerability, displacement and fragility through integrated approaches and cross-sector cooperation.

Experience shows that drought affects people very differently depending on their access to water, land, finance, information, technology, markets, services, decisionmaking and social protection. The event will demonstrate that inclusion is not an additional social component of drought investment; it can improve the quality, relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of investment itself. The event will highlight differentiated drought risk and how vulnerability, capacities and opportunities vary across people and communities and strengthen the investment case for inclusion by showing how local evidence, knowledge and agency can improve resilience investments and position women, youth and vulnerable groups as resilience actors and investment partners, not only beneficiaries. 
 

This side event will showcase Senegal's achievements under the Great Green Wall Initiative and present the Great Green Wall Integrator Programme (PIGMV) as the country's integrated framework for implementing and scaling up the Great Green Wall. The session will highlight the programme's alignment with regional, sectoral and national development frameworks, as well as its integrated approach to land restoration, sustainable natural resource management, climate adaptation, local economic development and green jobs. Bringing together governments, development partners, development banks, UN agencies, civil society and the private sector, the event will explore partnership and financing opportunities to support the implementation and scaling-up of the PIGMV. 
 

This high-level side event will highlight the importance of rangelands for sustainable livelihoods, food systems, biodiversity and climate resilience, with a particular focus on pastoralist communities and dryland ecosystems. It will bring together governments, financial institutions, scientific organizations and development partners to explore approaches for strengthening investment, knowledge sharing and cooperation in the sustainable management and restoration of rangelands.

This event will convene policymakers, industry leaders, youth representatives, and other
stakeholders to discuss how standards and regulations can support the sustainable transformation of the fashion sector. The policy dialogue will be followed by the Fashion4Land Fashion Show and an evening networking reception, providing opportunities to showcase sustainable fashion solutions and foster cross-sector collaboration.

This closing event will bring together representatives from business, finance, government and the fashion sector to explore the role of partnerships, innovation and private sector leadership in supporting land restoration, sustainable land management and drought resilience. It will highlight perspectives from the Business4Land Champions’ Council and showcase the links between sustainable fashion, natural fibers, responsible value chains and land stewardship through the Fashion4Land fashion show and networking reception.

The Investment Targeting Tool is an integrated geospatial decision-support platform that builds on and connects existing datasets and tools — vastly improving usability through an AI-assisted interface that exposes only the information relevant to each user's specific context and objectives. This meeting will offer an opportunity to partners to discuss how to leverage existing efforts to develop the tool, and the roadmap toward COP18.

For the first time, the partners behind the Resilient Threads project: Loro Piana, LVMH, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Odyssey Conservation Trust, the Sustainable Fibre Alliance and the Government of Mongolia,  will be together to unveil two years of innovative work in the Eastern Steppe: a gender-responsive One Health initiative co-designed to address the interconnected challenges of climate extreme events, rangeland degradation, biodiversity loss, health inequities and the fragile livelihoods of cashmere herders who are the stewards of this unique landscape. Drawing on concrete field results, the panel will move from concept to evidence. Project partners will be joined on stage by high-level representatives from the UNCCD, UNESCO, WOAH and senior Mongolian government authorities, as well as herders, to weigh the evidence directly and answer the questions that matter: what does it actually take to make One Health work on the ground and why is a public-private partnership so important.