UNCCD Terminology

Indicators developed by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in response to a request from the secretariats of the three Rio Conventions to identify aid activities targeting the objectives of the three Conventions.

Risk guarantees cover private debt against a government’s (or government entity’s) failure to meet specific obligations to a private or a public project.
(Source: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGUARANTEES/Resources/IDA_PRG.pdf)

The successive cultivation of different crops in a specified order on the same fields. Helps to reduce soil erosion and increases soil fertility and crop yield

Rotational Grazing, also called prescribed or managed grazing, is a management-intensive system of raising livestock on subdivided pastures called paddocks. Livestock are regularly rotated to fresh paddocks at the right time to prevent overgrazing and optimize grass growth.

The rules that govern the organisation and proceeding of a COP or other subsidiary body, including the procedures for decision-making, voting and participation.

An improved drinking water source which is located on premises, available when needed, and free of fecal and priority chemical contamination. See “Improved drinking water sources”

An image of the Earth’s surface made by means of artificial satellites.

The Executive Secretary and his staff are responsible for servicing the COP, including the preparation of documents and meeting arrangements. The CCD Secretariat is institutionally linked to the United Nations.

The Head of State or government, the foreign minister, or another designated official indicates his or her country's agreement with the adopted text of a treaty and its intention to become a Party by signing it.

A change in an LDN metric that is (i) considered to be significant by experts, taking into consideration the precision of the method; or (ii) unlikely to have arisen by chance, according to statistical analysis.

This projection maintains equal area despite conformal distortion. Alternative formats reduce the distortion along outer meridians by interrupting the continuity of the projection over the oceans and by centering the continents around their own central meridians, or vice versa. It is a pseudo cylindrical projection where all parallels and the central meridian are straight. The meridians are curves based on sine functions with the amplitudes increasing with the distance from the central meridian.
(Source: ArcGIS. http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.3/guide-books/map-projections/si…)

The amount of carbon stored in soil. SOC is the main component of soil organic matter (SOM). The persistence of SOC is seen as an ecosystem property, in that its level reflects the biogeochemical functioning of the ecosystem. Often, in several modelling approaches, SOC is conceptually divided into sub-pools with fast (Active sub-pool), intermediate (Slow sub-pool), and long (Passive sub-pool) turnover times. In observational studies however, ‘short-lived’ SOC can persist for long periods in the soil if it is, for instance, physically protected from degradation within the soil matrix. Similarly, ‘long-lived’ SOC forms can be rapidly degraded given favourable microbial conditions.

The mass of SOC per unit area for a reference soil layer. The reporting standard is SOC stock in tonnes of organic carbon per hectare to a depth of 30 cm. Determination of SOC stock requires measurements of SOC concentration in soil, corrected for water content, soil bulk density and gravel content.

Organization(s) supporting financially a given project, programme or initiative.

Established in 1980, SADC is a sub-regional intergovernmental organisation that, amongst other things, helps South African countries to implement the Convention. Its members include Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Spatial disaggregation or downscaling is the process by which information at a coarse spatial scale is translated to finer scales while maintaining consistency in the original dataset.