Land Degradation Neutrality and National Adaptation Plans: Tapping opportunities

The NAP Expo for 2016, organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat (UNFCCC), served as a fruitful scenario to leverage the implementation of LDN - Land Degradation Neutrality - (Sustainable Development Goal target 15.3) through its integration into the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). 

As one of the invited speakers, Mr. Markus Repnik, Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, highlighted the immense opportunities that can be tapped through LDN in order to address climate change adaptation.

By acting as an SDG accelerator, LDN provides multiple benefits such as food security, poverty reduction and green jobs, therefore reducing vulnerability to climate change. “LDN can act as a lens to create coherence amongst most relevant sustainable development policies such as climate change […]”, Repnik added. 

Mr. Repnik encouraged participant countries’ officers to look at LDN as a strategic entry point for NAP implementation by highlighting the strong nexus between land degradation and vulnerability to climate change in developing countries. 

As of today, 94 countries have committed to translate the global SDG target into country-specific targets and actions and most of these countries are also working on their NAPs. It provides crucial momentum and an enormous opportunity for integration. 

“It is time to move from pilots to large-scale, transformative multi-partner projects and programmes. Innovative and blended finance and private sector involvement will enable this transition and LDN provides the platform to put all those pieces together", Repnik concluded.