Theme: Attainment of food security for all through sustainable food systems.

Slogan: “No such thing as a free lunch. Invest in healthy soils.”

The World Day to Combat Desertification(WDCD) is observed worldwide on 17 June every year. The theme that year was “attainment of food security for all through sustainable food systems.” That year a WDCD global observance event was hold in Milan, Italy during the 2015 United Nations Expo.

With the slogan ‘No such thing as a free lunch. Invest in healthy soil’, the 2015 WDCD called for:

• a change in our land use practices through sustainable land management (SLM) and Climate change Adaptation, especially in the dry, fragile parts of the world where food shortages are becoming more and more severe;
• access to technology and land rights for small holder farmers who safeguard the environment and meet the food needs of millions of households, especially among the poorest households;
• use of best practices in land use and agriculture to achieve a balance between what is best for nature and provide for human consumption;
• more investments in SLM practices so that sustainable food systems become normal practice; and
• more effective action against the spread of deserts, which leads to food and water scarcity and environmentally forced migration that that threaten stability, peace and security.

The slogan for that year was crowd sourced. We thanked those who sent their suggestions and acknowledge Jihed Ghannem, Sahara and Sahel Observatory, whose proposal was chosen from the submissions.

To request further information, such as WDCD messages from United Nations officials or press releases in additional languages, as well as past campaign, press or awareness raising materials, please contact secretariat [at] unccd.int (secretariat[at]unccd[dot]int) .