2017: a year in review

This year, UNCCD and its partners have a lot to celebrate:

• The thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD (COP13) held in Ordos, China, from 6 to 16 September 2017adopted 36 decisions and one resolution, including the new UNCCD 2018-2030 Strategic Framework.
• The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Fund was officially launched during COP13 with an initial target size of USD 100 million (first close). The LDN Fund is a first-of-its-kind investment vehicle leveraging public sector funds to raise private sector capital for sustainable land management and landscape restoration activities worldwide.
• 120 heads of state and government attended the presentation of the LDN Fund at One Planet Summit. The Fund became one of the initiatives supported by the Summit, with the protection of land and water resources from the effects of climate change being the second of the Summit’s twelve engagements.
• 114 countries committed to set the voluntary Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets. Among them, more than 50 countries already set these targets and are advancing towards the development of LDN transformative projects and programmes tapping innovative finance. 17 international partners are supporting countries in this journey.  
• UNCCD first-ever COP Youth Forum attracted more than 200 participants from 25 countries around the world.
• On 17 June, the World Day to Combat Desertification, three Presidents in West Africa – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – urged solidarity and responsibility of international community in land rehabilitation and sustainable land management, and endorsed a Call for Action on land-based jobs to tackle Africa’s challenges.
• The Science-Policy Interface (SPI) produced two technical reports and two science-policy briefs on the topics of LDN, Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change. This work led to the publication of a scientific journal article and to the endorsement by COP13 of the Scientific Conceptual Framework for LDN.
• UNCCD library has reached close to 15 000 knowledge product subscribers with 11 publications, 20 news alerts and ten press releases.
• Three winners of the Land for Life Award from India, Sudan and China were honored at a special ceremony in Ordos, China, attended by more than 300 people.
• The UNCCD Capacity Building Marketplace held two major exhibitions, offered four e-learning training courses for national focal points (NFPs) and other stakeholders, delivered 10 lectures, held a global video competition , conducted a panel discussion on LDN and SLM that brought together over 60 participants from 10 universities, established formal working partnerships with 15 civil society organizations (CSOs) and in the second half of the year registered a 400 per cent increase in CBM offers in Spanish and French.
• The number of UNCCD Facebook followers reached 20 079, Twitter followers: 14 858, YouTube followers: 433, instagram followers: 682, and 36 507 people follow UNCCD on Weibo. 874 people signed the #LoveLand4 Climate i-petition, a part of the campaign that used the momentum around the Climate Change Conference 2017 to showcase the importance of sustainable land management (SLM) for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The campaign social media outreach was 71 007, earning 375 288 impressions.
• The number of visitors to the UNCCD online platforms has increased 43 percent, while the number of pages accessed increased 33 percent – a reflection on the major overhaul of the UNCCD website and knowledge platforms the previous year. The UNCCD website offers a modern design and improved ease of use, while the Knowledge Hub combines multiple knowledge platforms in one place, offering new publications and information on a daily basis and in a dynamic presentation.