Asia Pacific regional workshop on PRAIS reporting opens in New Delhi

25 April 2018
Story

24 April, 2018 – New Delhi, India – Delegates from the states of India, ministerial representatives and the chairman of The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) participated in the opening session of the UNCCD Asia Pacific regional workshop on PRAIS reporting, chaired by the Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change of India Dr. Harsh Vardhan. The Minister highlighted the commitment of the Government of India towards the land agenda and presented several national initiatives related to the implementation of UNCCD. Emphasizing the crucial need to achieve land degradation neutrality (LDN) by 2030, Dr. Vardhan encouraged the delegates to transform the workshop into a milestone in combating desertification, land degradation and drought.

Participants showed strong interest in the Trends.Earth tool developed by Conservation International to assist in the new UNCCD reporting process. Several representatives of country parties shared their own national data and boundary shape files. Attendies raised a broad range of questions on data resolution and the use of national data for land cover data presentation. The parties were informed that they need to make the decision whether they will use the default data provided by the secretariat or utilize their own national data. If parties opt to use the default data, the template will be pre-filled with the necessary information. In this case, Trends.Earth may be used for future work and national data when it becomes available.

The workshop will continue until 27 April 2018.