News & stories

In just two months, global attention will focus on land and drought resilience as the 16th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2 to 13 December 2024.

What is at stake at the most important global meeting on drought of the past decade26 September 2024 — Droughts are risks to be managed, rather than crises to be responded to with little or no planning. In the past decade, more than 70 countries around the world have developed national drought policies to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to harsher and more frequent droughts — a departure from the traditional reactive approach that was commonplace before the first High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy in 2013. As drought is projected to touch three out of four people globally by 2050, decision-makers and experts will reconvene in Geneva from 30 September to 2 October with a twin goal: taking stock of the progress made in the past ten years and transforming plans, policies and commitments into concrete actions that protect societies, economies and ecosystems from the impacts of drought. The Drought Resilience +10 (DR+10) Conference will result in a series of recommendations for decision-makers and managers. Crucially, its final declaration will inform the global drought community and the negotiations at the most ambitious land and drought summit in United Nations history, or UNCCD COP16, which will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2 to 13 December.Progress across the following issues will be at the heart of discussions to take global drought resilience to the next level:A global drought resilience mechanismGlobal drought governance is fragmented. A new global mechanism for drought resilience would align goals and investments across development agencies, development banks and international instruments like the Paris Agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and Land Degradation Neutrality efforts.The mechanism would also facilitate coordination and coherence across governance levels, sectors and funding flows, ensuring that policies, practices and incentives are aligned from the international to the local level. The proposal will be discussed at DR+10 and raised with world leaders at UNCCD COP16 to usher in a new era of drought resilience.A systemic approach to droughtDroughts have become 29 per cent more frequent since the year 2000 due to the combined effects of human-driven land degradation and climate change, and they are one of the world’s most deadly and costly nature-based hazards. Droughts impact agriculture and food security, but also health, energy production, transportation and the services that vibrant ecosystems provide to humanity. Additionally, they can trigger a string of hazards: flooding is made worse by dry, compacted ground; the loss of land cover can lead to sand and dust storms; and the degradation of watershed ecosystems can compromise water security in urban centres. Droughts cut across all sectors and governance levels and, as such, call for an all-of-government, all-of-society approach — an approach that must be rooted in sustainable land management, make the most of nature-based solutions and account for the cascading and compounding effects of drought. DR+10 looks to create the momentum for a truly systemic, inclusive and science- based approach to drought risk management. Droughts are a risk, but with the right actions, they needn't be a disaster.Funding and partnerships for actionIn the past decade, only five per cent of official development assistance for disasters was allocated to preparedness, although evidence shows that building drought resilience is up to ten times more cost-effective than waiting for crises to happen.That is an example of the disconnect between what we know needs to be done — fund drought resilience — and what is too often happening in practice — waiting for droughts to strike, then launching costly emergency responses as lives, livelihoods and assets are lost.So how can the financial allocations for proactive and emergency measures be rebalanced? What role should the private sector play in protecting the watersheds their water-intensive businesses depend on? And how could governments better attract financial resources and forge partnerships for drought resilience? These are some of the questions DR+10 will address with a view to closing the drought finance gap and encouraging meaningful partnerships between public, private and civil society actors. Geneva to RiyadhThe UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which is turning 30 this year, is the only legally binding instrument that addresses land degradation and drought at the global level, recognizing that we are only as resilient to drought as our land is.The outcomes and recommendations of DR+10 on the issues above will be presented to world leaders at UNCCD COP16 in December and inform high-level negotiations on potential global drought resilience mechanisms. The march from Geneva to Riyadh, and from policies to action, is on.Learn more about the nine DR+10 workstreamsRegister onlineCheck out the programmeFor media:Media registrationFor interviews with UNCCD representatives contact: gpallares@unccd.int

Excellence Monsieur le Premier Ministre Madame la Présidente de la Conférence des ministres africains de l’environnementMesdames et Messieurs les Ministres, et Chefs de délégations,Monsieur le Président de la COP 15 de UNCCD,Excellences Mesdames et Messieurs les Ambassadeurs,Mesdames et Messieurs les Représentants des Organisations Internationales et des Agences du Système des Nations Unies,Mesdames et messieurs,—————————————Le 3 mai 2022, le Président de la République de Côte d’Ivoire recevait, dans cette même salle, des Leaders du monde, pour l’ouverture de la COP15 de la Convention des Nations-Unies sur la Lutte contre la Désertification.  SEM Alassane Ouattara jetait, à l’occasion, les bases d’un programme ambitieux de restauration des terres. Cette COP15, et l’Initiative d’Abidjan sur la restauration des terres, sont restées gravées dans nos mémoires comme étant une des étapes importantes dans la vie de la Convention. Comme pour nous replonger dans les sources d’eau rafraîchissantes du Gbancô (Banco), ou nous concerter sous les baobabs de la Comoé, nous revoilà en terre africaine de Côte d’Ivoire. En quête sinon d’une fraction de la mémoire desEléphants, du moins de la sagesse ressortant de l’arbre à palabres.Le fossé entre les besoins d’une population croissante, et la disponibilité de terres productives, ce fossé dis-je, n’a jamais été grand. Par ailleurs, les revendications des jeunes africains qui aspirent au développement plus juste et plus durable n’ont jamais été aussi audibles. Fort heureusement, l’Afrique n’a jamais été aussi proche d’un consensus ministériel cohérent, avant de prendre part aux trois COP des Conventions de la génération de Rio. Voilà qui plante le décor de l’importance des assises d’Abidjan.  Excellencies,  Ladies and gentlemen,  As we gather here in Abidjan for this special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, large parts of the African continent are wilting.  The Greater Horn of Africa has not yet recovered from its longest drought in 40 years. The dry spell is not sparing North Africa and the Mediterranean region. A couple of years ago, it was Madagascar and the Sahel that were dry. As we speak, the Sahel is severely affected by floods notably in Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Sudan. There is hardly any year where floods, drought or loss of fertile land is not hitting the continent. It is heartbreaking to see that Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia --once breadbaskets—are listed among the most affected by malnutrition caused by drought. In Namibia, crippling drought is pushing both people and wildlife to the brink.The loss of productive land across the continent, coupled with the disruptions caused by the increased and erratic rainfall patterns, have reached such levels that young African men and women have no choice but to abandon their farms; flee their villages and their countries. This amplifies a phenomenon that is increasingly making headlines across the world. A phenomenon at the center of the many electoral campaigns we saw this year:  forced migration. In other words, because land degradation fails to garner the political attention it deserves from the countries of origin of African migrants, it is indirectly capturing the attention in third countries. Often for the wrong reasons, leading to a cascade of unsuitable solutions. It is also remarkable that political discussions across the world, and in Africa in particular, barely scratch the surface of the complex relationship between land degradation, climate change and the destruction of natural habitats on the one hand, and conflict and insecurity on the other.  Yet it is a well-known fact that despair breeds hatred. Hunger fuels frustration and resentment. Poverty and the lack of educational and economic opportunities make young people easy prey to trafficking as well as armed conflict and violence. Bad governance creates gusts of frustration which, once set in motion, become very difficult to contain. What could be more paradoxical in the eyes of young people—the overwhelming majority of the African people—than to see their soil, subsoil and seabed overflowing with so much potential, while the opportunities for wealth creation are so few? What could be more intriguing than being fed with speeches claiming that Africa has more arable land than any other continent in the world; when it is the African continent that receives the most food aid?  This begs two questions: is Africa properly addressing the root causes of land degradation? Is Africa prepared to mitigate the impact of the more frequent and more intense droughts -and floods- that are hitting a fast growing, vulnerable population? Addressing the root causes of land degradation points to a revision of some development policies. Reviewing agricultural development policies in the light of real African needs as well as new geopolitical priorities and realities. The land must not be seen only as a source of extraction: extraction of agricultural products, extraction of minerals and extraction of water resources. Nor must the land be seen only through the lenses of exploitation. As the land is our most precious asset for our food, our clothes, our fuels and our animals' feed, we need to adopt a managerial rather than an exploitative attitude. An asset— especially such as a precious asset— ought to be managed, with a whole-of-government and a whole-of-society approach. What's more, the time has come to create value chains for products extracted from the soil and the depths of African lands. Creating jobs and added value before export. Giving economic value— and not just the market value of raw produce— to agriculture.  Changing our relationship with nature also means adapting to natural hazards. Rather than being reactive to slow-onset disasters, we need to prepare for them, including the silent killers, such as drought. In the same way as anticipating and monitoring non-communicable diseases, each country needs to develop its own drought and flood resilience plan.  Mesdames et Messieurs,Les chiffres du dernier rapport quadriennal de UNCCD montrent qu’en dépit d’importants efforts de restauration des terres, 163 millions d’ha de terres se sont dégradées en Afrique entre 2015 et 2019. Si cette superficie dégradée en seulement 4 ans était une nation, ç’aurait été le 5e pays le plus vaste d’Afrique ! N’est-il pas venu le temps de traiter ces plaies béantes qui menacent l’avenir de tout un continent ?  N’est-il pas venu le temps de repenser les politiques d’extraction agricole et minière ? Le secteur primaire représente la principale source de revenus en Afrique. De sa gestion rationnelle et durable dépendra donc le futur économique du continent.Offrir une autre voie, une approche alternative et plus durable à la gestion des ressources naturelles et l’atténuation des effets de la sécheresse, tel pourrait être le message clé de l’Afrique à la seizième session de la Conférence des Parties à la Convention UNCCD prévue à Riyadh, Royaume d’Arabie Saoudite, du 2 au 13 décembre prochain.Il est attendu de cette COP16 d’être un tournant historique pour adopter une nouvelle approche de gestion des terres et de résilience à la sécheresse. Nous anticipons que Riyadh sera non seulement une belle et grande COP, mais qu’elle laissera un héritage sans précédent pour construire un monde plus résilient à la sécheresse et à la dégradation de la nature. Les agendas des terres, du climat et de la biodiversité étant fortement interconnectés, une approche globale et intégrée est fortement recommandée. Quelle belle coïncidence car la présente session intervient au moment où nous nous préparons tous, avant la fin de cette année, aux COP des 3 Conventions de Rio. La rencontre d’Abidjan vient, donc, à point nommé car se situant à la croisée des chemins de l’agenda environnemental mondial. L’Afrique doit inéluctablement réaffirmer et renforcer son leadership et aller en Arabie Saoudite avec une position confortable et concertée. Une sagesse africaine dit ceci : « Quand la tête est là, il ne faut pas que le genou prétende porter le bonnet ».Alors quand l’Afrique est là, présente en force, qui d’autre portera le bonnet à Riyadh ?  Je vous remercie.

When the flow of a tropical island nation’s most important river varies by 80 per cent between the dry and wet seasons, something is amiss. In a conserved watershed, the volume of water only fluctuates by 20 per cent, pointing to the role of healthy lands in trapping and slowly releasing moisture as opposed to having water run off in a flash. Such is the predicament of the Northern Yaque river in the Dominican Republic, a mountainous Caribbean country of 10.5 million. Today, water pressure on the river is around 96 per cent, meaning that virtually all the water that the river can be counted on to carry permanently is committed to use by a growing urban population, plantations, and industries. But change, with both short- and long-term gains, is underway.For the past 15 years, dedicated partnerships convening the civil society, public, and private sectors have come up with sustainable land and water management strategies that work for everybody — smallholders, utilities providers and financiers — creating a blueprint from which others can draw inspiration.Experts working to rehabilitate the Northern Yaque watershed, which covers 14.6 per cent of the country, talked us through their process and the success factors in improving the water security of more than 1,8 million people, while building drought resilience in the face of climate change. Partnering with water users The civil society-led Plan for the Development of the Northern Yaque Watershed, or Plan Yaque, convenes 32 civil society and governmental institutions to reforest water catchment areas, train farmers in sustainable land and water management, and help communities treat wastewater before it is released into the river. In turn, Plan Yaque is a technical advisor and a key project implementer of the Northern Yaque Water Fund, a financial and governance mechanism launched in 2015 to raise and administer funds for water security in the watershed. The Fund, which is one of two such structures in the Dominican Republic, brings together 27 partners, including the Ministry of Environment, universities, and the water utility company of the country’s second largest city, Santiago. Additionally, it involves major users like manufacturing companies and banana, rice, and tobacco producer associations —crucial since agriculture accounts for an estimated 85 per cent of water consumption in the area. “The Water Fund is built on the notion that no single stakeholder can do it alone,” says executive director of the Water Fund Walkiria Estévez, who notes that the Dominican Republic is one of the most water stressed countries in the world.Ensuring financial sustainabilityPrivate sector partners contribute economically to the Fund, while each of the customers of the water utility company of Santiago contributes a small amount. The money is then invested in different portfolios and 75 per cent of the profits are used in support of nature-based solutions for water security. The rest is channeled back into the Fund to grow it. But how did the fund get the private sector on board in the first place?“We don’t speak of donations, but of investments,” says Estévez. “The private sector is investing to secure a crucial input —water— for their operations now and in the future. Ultimately, it is about having users take responsibility for managing a vital resource sustainably.”Upholding accountabilityFor Estévez, measuring results, financial accountability, and transparency have been central to gaining and maintaining the trust of partners, as has been starting with low-investment, high-impact interventions that are based on science.“We did not wait for the trust fund to reach a substantial size to start funding projects and presenting results. That was vital to prove that our model worked and to keep the momentum,” she says. However, she notes that continuing to grow the fund is important to bring successful strategies to scale and to support new ones. For example, upcoming trainings to help lowland farmers conserve soils and improve water use efficiency, which currently stands at less than 30 per cent, according to technical project coordinator Alberto Lizardo.Artificial wetland in the Dominican RepublicDeploying nature-based solutionsOne of the star interventions in the watershed are artificial wetlands, treatment systems that use natural processes involving wetland vegetation, soils, and their associated microbial diversity to improve water quality. Plan Yaque is the NGO behind the development and implementation of these low-tech, low-maintenance systems, which have proved to be a transformative solution for rural communities. They have so far built 34 of them. The wastewater from the septic tanks at homes and schools is channeled to the constructed wetland, where microorganisms, aquatic plants, and sunlight remove more than 90 per cent of the pollutants, before the water is released into the river. Water pollution is, alongside flow reduction, one of the two main issues jeopardizing water security in the basin.“The nature-based system works wonderfully and does not need inputs or maintenance, beyond removing the sewage sludge every three months, which communities do themselves” says founder and executive director of Plan Yaque Humberto Checo, one of the leading figures in the watershed restoration and management movement in the country. Working in micro-watershedsFor Checo, from Plan Yaque, a key to their success is focusing each intervention in selected territories drained by streams, or micro-watersheds, 52 tesserae that collectively make up the river Yaque basin. The NGO conducted a diagnosis of the 19 micro-watersheds in the upper basin and prioritized those with both high-water production and imminent threat from the expansion of the agricultural frontier, which leads to deforestation and the loss of the natural systems that maintain an adequate water flow. Then, they identified key farms or producer associations and set out to demonstrate why shifting from slash-and-burn agriculture to self-sustaining forestry and agroforestry systems was in their best interest.Changing mindsets “Changing mindsets to transform land management one family at a time is the most important part of the whole strategy, and our most important learning,” says Checo.Short cycle crops like corn, sweet potatoes, and yuca mean that farmers must toil incessantly into their old age to make a living, he says, whereas planting macadamia nut trees, orchards, and even coffee ensures a good source of future income with minimal effort while regenerating the soil and protecting water catchment areas. Land use planning across the farm is part of the approach.Parched, denuded hills of the farmers who continued with business as usual 15 years ago now stand next to the stunningly verdant slopes of those who opted to shift to more sustainable agricultural practices, reviving the landscape and building economic security for present and future generations along the way. These type of efforts largely account for the rise of the Dominican Republic as a global land restoration hotspot.“Sustainability lies in this newly gained awareness of the need to care, together, for the natural systems that sustain us,” says Estévez of the Water Fund. This is what we ultimately strive for.”Bringing what works to scalePlan Yaque has also pioneered a payment for ecosystem services scheme (PES) with support from hydropower and water providers, and the country recently passed its first law on PES. The next challenge, says Checo, is bringing this and other internationally lauded, science-based initiatives to micro-watersheds across the country.“After decades of experience in watershed restoration and protection, we have evidence on what works,” says Checo. “With the right policies and investments, we could bring this expertise to scale while supporting the next generation of landscape professionals.”  

Accreditation for media is now available for the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).  The conference will take place from 2 to 13 December 2024 at Boulevard Riyadh City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ( Al Imam Saud Ibn Faysal Rd, Hittin, Riyadh).  Journalists are invited to apply for accreditation via our Online Registration System (ORS).  Please note that the Online Registration System (ORS) is the only platform through which media accreditation and permission to cover COP 16 can be obtained. The UNCCD secretariat does not accept accreditation requests via email or post. Any materials sent outside the ORS will not be processed.  Please ensure that all documents comply with the specified requirements and that the applicant details are consistent throughout the application. Kindly note that participation is moderated and that all registrations must be approved.  Please monitor your ORS account for any additional documentation or information requests that may be required to confirm your application. Once your registration has been confirmed, you will be sent a Registration Acknowledgement Form.  Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us via your online registration account or at press@unccd.int   Further details will be made available on our website in due course. 

On behalf of the UNCCD, I welcome the UN System-wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation to further align our efforts to provide quality water for all. At UNCCD, we are particularly focusing on ensuring the availability of water through one of the planet’s most important natural assets: our land. Land is a natural ally in our drive to secure quality water supplies. Yet up to 40% of our planet’s land is already degraded, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. Meanwhile, global freshwater demand is on track to outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, putting societies, economies, and ecosystems on the line. In this context, we cannot afford to continue taking our land and its crucial role in the provision of clean water, food and energy for granted.   Healthy lands are better at filtrating water, allowing aquifers to recharge, retaining soil moisture, and even supporting cloud formation!   Additionally, healthy lands reduce water runoff, erosion and the risk of floods, which can trigger serious sanitation and public health problems and, tragically, loss of life.   We tend to think of drought as the absence of rain. But often, it is also the result of poor land management, meaning we are only as resilient to climate change--and its impacts on water quality and availability--as our land is. Addressing water and land management as part of drought resilience policies is therefore critical. The new UN System-wide strategy is an opportunity to recognize this vital connection between water and land and to put in place the right policies, incentives and investments to secure these precious resources for present and future generations.