Governing bodies meetings

In their first meeting which took place in Bonn from 29-30 November 2022, the members of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought (IWG) underscored the urgency and importance of addressing drought holistically, given the world has never been affected by dry spells as much as today. Thinking ahead and acting in advance of drought has far lower costs than reacting and responding to the impacts once drought hits. The Group discussed the need to provide further guidance and advice for the next COP 16 to advance the global drought agenda. The group members also deliberated on the working modalities and further refined their workplan for the next two years.   The next IWG is scheduled to take place in mid-March 2023. 

The fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the meetings of its subsidiary bodies will take place at the Sofitel Abidjan Hôtel Ivoire in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, from 9 to 20 May 2022.

  According to Rule 4.3 of the rules of procedure of the COP, the second extraordinary session of the COP (COP ES-2) shall be convened within three months of the request being communicated to the Parties by the UNCCD secretariat, provided that it is supported by at least one third of the Parties.  In the event that the above request is accepted, the secretariat would circulate a proposal for an interim budget for 2022 as soon as possible and no later than six weeks before the date of the COP(ES-2). It is envisaged that COP (ES-2) would consider the draft decision for approval through a silence/written procedure that would take place between 6 and 9 December 2021.  Should the COP (ES-2) be convened, it is requested that representatives of Parties to the Convention be provided, in line with Rule 19 of the rules of procedure, with full powers to participate in the session.

The third CST14 Bureau meeting will update the CST Bureau on the preliminary list of official documents for CST15 and set milestones for their development and completion, based on the status of the ongoing work of the SPI provided by the reporting team and the knowledge management team.

The nineteenth session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 19) to the UNCCD will be organized online from 15 to 19 March 2021. The CRIC 19 will review the effective implementation of the Convention at national, subregional and regional levels including updates on the voluntary land degradation neutrality target setting process, operationalization of the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund and implementation of the Drought Initiative. The Intergovernmental Working Group on effective policy and implementation measures for addressing drought under the UNCCD will present its interim report for consideration by Parties at CRIC19. More info...

The meeting will review the progress on and challenges in the implementation of the SPI work programme 2020-2021,  focusing on the follow-up activities to the COP14 decisions relevant to SPI work programme 2018-2019 and ways to improve visibility and continuity of the scientific foundation by SPI for policy development. The meeting will review and further facilitate collaboration of the CST and CRIC in reporting and discuss the role of CST in knowledge sharing and science-based UNCCD communications. To fulfill the role of the CST Bureau in bridging parties with ongoing intersessional actions on science and technology and their potential implications for policy recommendations, the meeting will also initiate preparations for CST15 and COP15.  

The fourteenth session of the Conference of the Parties will take place from 2 to 13 September 2019 at the India Expo Center and Mart, in New Delhi, India.  The global Conference is expected to review the progress made, especially during the last two years, to control and reverse further loss of productive land from desertification, land degradation and drought. These are considered growing threats to peace and security in both developed and developing countries due to the widespread loss of livelihoods for communities and even entire regions. Read more...

The seventeenth session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), will be held at the Arthur Chung Conference Center (ACCC) from 28 to 30 January 2019 in Georgetown, Guyana. More info...

The thirteen session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13), the sixteenth session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC16), and the thirteenth session of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST13) will be held at Ordos International Convention and Exhibition Center, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China from 6-16 September 2017. Its high-level segment is scheduled on 11 and 12 September 2017.Read more:Find more information on COP13