United
Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Drought www.unccd.int
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UNITED
FOR LAND - UNCCD NEWS ALERT
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Reversing
land degradation:
South Africa's restoration success stories
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