UNITED FOR LAND – UNCCD NEWS ALERT UNCCD Secretariat 11-17-25

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Drought www.unccd.int

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UNITED FOR LAND – UNCCD NEWS ALERT

UNCCD Secretariat 11-17-25

UPDATES FROM THE UNCCD SECRETARIAT AND THE GLOBAL MECHANISM
17 November 2025

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UN meeting to review global progress on desertification, land degradation and drought

UNCCD CRIC23 is set to convene in Panama City, 1-5 December 2025. Representatives of 196 countries and the European Union will meet in Panama from 1-5 December 2025 to review their efforts against desertification, land degradation and drought under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) — one of the three Rio Conventions, alongside biodiversity and climate.

The 23rd session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 23) to the UNCCD will convene some 500 delegates from governments, civil society, and academia to assess progress in advancing the Convention’s objectives.

A signatory to UNCCD since 1996, Panama has committed to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality by 2030, identified 31 critical hotspots, and is advancing reforestation and Dry Corridor adaptation programmes — underlining its role as regional host. In 2023, the country faced its driest year on record, when water shortages disrupted traffic through the Panama Canal and highlighted how local drought can trigger global consequences.

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Arab region is key to linking land and water, mobilizing finance and driving partnerships for water security

Arab environment ministers gathered last month in Nouakchott for the 36th session of the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE), the League of Arab States’ highest forum for regional cooperation on environment and sustainable development. The Council serves as the Arab region’s highest policy platform on environment, enabling ministers to align regional priorities, prepare joint positions for global negotiations, and advance cooperative projects. The meeting placed a strong focus on restoring land, building drought resilience and integrating land and water management as central pathways to food security and stability.

In her address, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Yasmine Fouad, called for renewed solidarity across the Arab region to scale up action on land and drought. She stressed that “water is the lifeline of the land. When its management falters, the soil loses its fertility, crops decline, and the impacts of drought and land degradation intensify. Integrating land and water management is not only an environmental imperative, it is an economic necessity.”

How a global network is turning drought knowledge into action

When Southern Africa experienced its third consecutive year of severe drought between 2015 and 2017, Bongani Simon Masuku — now Principal Secretary in Eswatini’s Ministry of Agriculture — saw firsthand how fragmented responses could deepen a crisis.

As a longtime advocate for science-based policy and former Chair of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Committee on Science and Technology, Masuku recalls how the lack of coordination and shared learning left many countries struggling to respond effectively.

Those hard lessons, nearly a decade old, laid the groundwork for more coordinated and inclusive approaches to drought management — culminating in a significant breakthrough at UNCCD COP16 in 2024.

How the Changwon Initiative strengthens the Peace Forest vision

In a world where tensions often flare over shrinking resources, the Peace Forest Initiative (PFI) offers a quiet revolution. Launched by the UNCCD in 2019, the initiative brings together countries — sometimes even former adversaries—to restore degraded land and rebuild trust through nature.

This isn’t about top-down diplomacy. It’s about neighbors planting trees side by side, transforming contested borders into corridors of collaboration. The logic is powerful: when land thrives, so do the communities that depend on it. Healthy soil, clean water and green landscapes can help stabilize economies, improve food security and reduce the risk of displacement or violence.

At its core, the Peace Forest Initiative turns contested land into common ground. In regions fractured by conflict, shared reforestation projects are rewriting narratives—replacing suspicion with collaboration. Here, planting a tree isn’t just ecology; it’s diplomacy.

REA

UNCCD Data Dashboard showcases countries’ commitments to land restoration

The UNCCD Data Dashboard is the first global tool to monitor land degradation based on information reported by countries. Its latest update makes it easier to see how countries are responding to the crisis by bringing together, in one platform, the voluntary Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets and actions submitted by governments. Until now, this information was scattered across many various reports.

With support from the European Commission, the UNCCD secretariat created a system to gather and manage national commitments, including a map showing geospatial data from 2022 reports. The new public update means anyone can now search, filter and download this data to see what countries are doing to stop and reverse land degradation.

The Dashboard’s first release showed just how severe the crisis is: every year between 2015 and 2019, the world lost at least 100 million hectares of healthy land — roughly the size of Egypt. But the Dashboard also shows success stories: Botswana cut land degradation by more than half, while the Dominican Republic restored vast areas of farmland and watersheds.

Global fight against desertification

In every region of the world land is under pressure from climate change, unsustainable practices and growing demand for food and water. When land degrades, it fuels inequality, erodes livelihoods and deepens the risk of instability far beyond national borders.

Yet the solutions are already in our hands. By restoring degraded land, investing in drought resilience and placing nature at the centre of development, countries can strengthen food and water security, create green jobs and offer young people real reasons to stay and thrive in their communities.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Yasmine Fouad explains why land restoration must be treated as a strategic investment in peace and stability, not an environmental afterthought, and how bold action on land can help deliver on global goals for climate, biodiversity and sustainable development.

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Empowering land negotiators for a fairer future

International negotiations on land degradation and drought are becoming increasingly complex — and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Yet many of the people expected to speak on behalf of their countries in these spaces often find themselves underprepared. This is especially true for delegates from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), where limited access to training and funding has left gaps in negotiation capacity.

The UNCCD recognized this challenge early on. While political will and technical knowledge existed in many countries, the ability to navigate the rules, procedures and pressures of global negotiations often did not. What was needed was not just information — but preparation.

The UNCCD Secretariat developed and delivered a comprehensive training programme focused specifically on negotiation skills. It combined regional workshops — held in cities like Nairobi, Marrakesh, Istanbul and Seoul — with digital learning tools, multilingual resources and interactive simulations. The goal was simple: to ensure that all countries could participate meaningfully in global land negotiations.

Strengthening Kazakhstan’s response to sand and dust storms

On March 26, 2010, a massive dust storm rose from the exposed bed of the South Aral Sea and swept across southern Kazakhstan. Within hours, skies darkened, visibility collapsed and toxic dust blanketed towns and farmland.

The storm carried more than just sand and silt—it spread salt, pesticides and heavy metals, the legacy of decades of environmental mismanagement. It disrupted transport, damaged crops and strained hospitals with respiratory cases—highlighting how land degradation can trigger public health emergencies and economic instability.

This wasn’t an isolated event. Over the past two decades, sand and dust storms (SDS) in Kazakhstan have grown more frequent and intense, particularly across the Aral Sea Basin and the country’s southern and central regions. What were once seasonal disturbances are now recognized as chronic climate and land-use threats.

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Reversing land degradation:
South Africa’s restoration success stories

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/11/unccd-united-nations-convention-to.html