Holding back the desert

Join the official launch of the Economics of Drought report and learn about its findings for a way forward.

The experts will delve deeper into the report’s findings, highlighting actionable pathways to reduce drought vulnerability and secure sustainable livelihoods.

This side event emphasizes soil health as a vital link across climate, desertification, and biodiversity agendas.

This session will showcase advancements in soil health monitoring from robust field survey designs, to innovations in laboratory methods including soil spectroscopy, as well as advancements in remote sensing to track the impact of land restoration interventions.

The session will contribute to the COP16 through providing an example of success as well as guidance to support governments, business and civil society to rapidly and efficiently scale up land restoration in Africa and beyond.

This Moonshot session will share their success stories – to draw lessons learned for the years ahead in our global race to restoration.

The report “Stepping back from the precipice: Transforming land management to stay within planetary boundaries”, prepared by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in collaboration with UNCCD, highlights the critical importance of land for Earth system processes, economic development, and human wellbeing.

The Business 4 Land Forum is a high-level gathering designed to spotlight the intersection of business, finance, and policy in addressing one of the most pressing global challenges of our time: restoring and protecting the world’s soils and water resources.

Join us to learn about solutions for dryland development through agroforestry.

The side event will bring together senior government officials from the 16 LPA country partners in Asia, alongside senior African government officials, technical partners and supporters of LPA and AFR100 initiatives.

This session will highlight scientific advances, applications, and lessons learned for inclusivity and collaboration across soil health research and development, fundamental to land restoration. Specifically, we will highlight advancements in soil and land health monitoring and demonstrate how this evidence can inform investments and programs across the globe.

The side event aims to explore the critical role of drought management within the GEF’s strategic framework, focusing on the importance of proactive drought prevention and management by UNCCD Country Parties.

This side event addresses FAO’s call for a thorough understanding of carbon sequestration potential in drylands managed as silvopastoral systems.

This session explores regenerative agriculture as a transformative approach to address global challenges in food security, climate resilience, and ecosystem restoration.

This high-level session will focus on the critical role of innovative research and collaboration in addressing land degradation and achieving a land-degradation-neutral world by 2030.

This event will explore the socio-economic, policy, and practical aspects of conserving and enhancing soil health for food security and resilience.

The event will highlight on-the-ground implementation and opportunities for evidence-based policy framework to contribute to food systems transformation and land restoration, from the soil up.

This event will feature presentations from three grant winners, sharing their impactful work on ecosystem restoration in Cameroon, the Gambia and Argentina.

This side event will spotlight the vital role of soil health in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the realms of land management, food security, and climate resilience. Africa’s soil degradation crisis presents significant obstacles to sustainable agriculture, economic stability, and environmental conservation.

Join this session for an interactive exchange on what’s next for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

In this event, speakers will uncover some of the key barriers for women and youth to access and manage land in their communities, and discuss strategies to overcome these challenges. 

This event will examine the relationship between drought and ecosystem degradation and how ecosystem restoration, through nature-based solutions, can reduce drought and build the adaptive capacity of communities and ecosystems.

The youth conference will be closed on the occasion of People’s Day on 7th December with the organization of a 2 hours high level event with the participation of the COP President, the Minister of Human Resources and Social of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, high rank government officials and youth representatives to present the outcomes of the conference and commitments for ensuring the meaningful engagement of the youth.

The event will focus on how these approaches can contribute to the broader UNCCD goals, including restoration of 1.5 billion hectares of degraded ecosystems by 2050.

This event will mark the launch of the report “Rooted in restoration: youth-led transformative change for regreening Africa“, which highlights shared experiences, challenges, and solutions suggested by several dozen young landscape practitioners and experts across Africa who participated in a series of consultations centered on the restoration of African ecosystems.

This session will also provide a platform for dialogue, inviting participants to connect, collaborate, and reimagine the role of youth in addressing the pressing challenges of our time.

More than 30 years after the Earth Summit in Rio (Brazil), trust in the impact of environmental policies can only be kept alive if we finally transform promises into tangible results beyond silos. The idea of breaking silos is not a novel one—climate, biodiversity and land are all interconnected in the real world.

This side event will focus on describing the key components of the framework and progress made towards mainstreaming in the national plans and policies.

This event will focus on the urgent global goal of restoring 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030, with an emphasis on grasslands, savannahs and rangelands, which are essential for food security, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration.

The event will present concrete solutions that have been implemented on the ground, for example in the African context. The event will convene investors, policymakers, and practioners to explore concrete strategies that support farmers in their transition to sustainable land management and regenerative systems, thereby contributing to the overarching goals of the COP16.