Desertification and land degradation are a threat to the livelihoods of millions of poor people. The management of drylands and restoration of degraded lands represents an opportunity to increase productivity and improve incomes while enhancing resilience to climate change.

Today, the world's deforested, dry, and degraded lands are expanding due to natural factors as well as to unsustainable land management practices that result from increasing population pressures on food, fodder, and fuelwood. Land degradation can be particularly damaging for the poor populations living in dryland areas, which need to be managed in a sustainable way. In effect, poor drylands management can lead to desertification, land degradation, declining resilience to extreme climate events such as droughts, and decreasing productivity and food production.