At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012 world leaders recognized land degradation, desertification and drought as serious global challenges, impeding sustainable development of all countries and committed to “strive to achieve a land-degradation neutral world” by restoring land and avoiding further land degradation.
They also reaffirmed their resolve under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to take coordinated action nationally, regionally and internationally, to monitor land degradation globally and further develop and implement scientifically based and socially inclusive indicators for monitoring and assessing the extent of desertification, land degradation and drought.

The PRAIS project has been instrumental in piloting the new quantitative monitoring, assessment, reporting and review system requested by Parties, and marked the kick-off of a system that is now delivering the results that Parties expected. This is especially true with regards to information available for decision making towards the implementation of the 10-year Strategy and consequently poverty reduction and the protection of the ecosystems in drylands.

Like any tool, the impact and progress of the Convention needs to be measured to allow for better and swifter action and policy, and as such its reporting and review system has evolved down the years. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in its capacity as one of the implementing agencies for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), has supported the Convention in this process. In particular the Performance Review and Assessment of Implementation System (PRAIS) project developed an indicator-based reporting system a vital way of tracking progress in achieving the poverty reduction and environmental sustainability objectives of the Convention.