All publications and documents

In recent decades there have been numerous global and regional targets and initiatives to halt and reverse land degradation. The land degradation neutrality (LDN) target, embedded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), provides a framework for countries to avoid or reduce degradation through sustainable land management, coupled with efforts to restore or rehabilitate degraded…

The goal of these Guiding Principles is to inform pragmatic strategies and propose a Framework for Action to build an enabling environment for more inclusive and functional urban-rural linkages. The principles are flexible and can be applied by all levels of stakeholders at all scales. While the principles are designed for universal application, there are distinct roles and actions…

The ‘Action Agenda for Nature and People’ of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has potential to become a powerful vehicle for increasing the ambition level of global biodiversity policy and move towards rapid and scalable implementation. It can also help to build a positive momentum for global biodiversity conservation in the run up to COP-15 in China in 2020. Opportunities…

As the world’s population grows, the demand for food and fuel also keeps rising. Agroforestry systems, in which naturally fertilising nitrogen-fixing wood crops are planted alongside food crops, offer opportunities to boost fuel and food supplies simultaneously. This study aims to estimate the potential for sustainable bioenergy production in Africa through such systems, based on the…

The Loss and Damage (L&D) discourse, initiated almost three decades ago by Small Island States worried about sea level rise, has given voice to concerns for climate change-related impacts that may be irreversible and beyond physical and social adaptation limits. The discourse has become institutionalised in international climate policy through the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and…

Organisations and professionals that monitor and manage drought often experience difficulties in communicating the complexities of drought to the public. Also the media who write about drought are often criticised for sensationalising the issues by highlighting empty reservoirs and dry river beds and scaring people rather than informing them about what they can do to lessen the impacts.