By Science Africa correspondent
To restore over one billion hectares of degraded land and build resilience to drought, at least USD 2.6 trillion in total investments are needed by 2030. This is according to estimates by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
As the COP 16 concluded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia various pledges were made to achieve this goal including the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership. The Partnership attracted USD 12.15 billion to support 80 of the world’s most vulnerable countries in building their resilience to drought, including a USD 10 billion pledge from the Arab Coordination Group.
The Great Green Wall (GGW), an African-led initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, also mobilized EUR 11 million from the Italian Government for landscape restoration in the Sahel and EUR 3.6 million from the Austrian Government to strengthen the coordination and implementation of the initiative across 22 African countries. The drive is part of the GGW Accelerator, a UNCCD-supported effort to. achieve the ambitions for a greener, more prosperous Sahel.
Additionally, the United States and several partner countries and organizations announced total investments of nearly USD 70 million to advance the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS). The initiative looks to build resilient food systems grounded in diverse, nutritious, and climate-adapted crops grown in healthy soils.
The first-ever UNCCD COP in the Middle East and North Africa provided an opportunity to shine a light on the specific challenges facing the region and bring to the fore innovative solutions to land degradation and drought.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced five new projects valued at USD 60 million to ramp up climate and Environmental efforts as part of the Saudi Green Initiative.
The UNCCD COP16 Presidency also announced the launch of an international sand and dust storm monitoring initiative. This effort, part of a regional early warning system, aims to complement existing efforts overseen by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The International Drought Resilience Observatory (IDRO), whose prototype launched at COP16, will be the first global AI-driven platform to help countries assess, and enhance their capacity to cope with harsher droughts. This innovative tool is an initiative of the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA).
Greater voice for Indigenous Peoples and other non-state actors
To ensure that the perspectives and priorities of Indigenous and Local Communities are adequately represented in the work of the Convention, Parties at COP 16 requested the creation of individual Caucuses for each of the groups.
The declaration ‘Sacred Lands’, presented during the inaugural Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at a UNCCD COP, underscored the role of Indigenous Peoples in sustainable resource management and called for greater involvement in global land and drought governance, including through participation in land restoration efforts.
“Today, history has been made”, said Indigenous People representative Oliver Tester from Australia. “We look forward to championing our commitment to protect Mother Earth through a dedicated Caucus, and leave this space trusting that our voices be heard.”
COP16 also saw the biggest youth participation to date, building on the UNCCD Youth Engagement Strategy and Action Plan, that seeks to give youth a more prominent role in land and drought negotiations and action, and provide technical and financial support for youth-led initiatives.
On the gender front, countries underscored the need to pay special attention to all forms of discrimination faced by women and girls when designing and implementing policy and programmes related to land degradation and drought.
In recognition of the important role of the private sector, which currently contributes only 6% of financing towards land restoration and drought resilience, Parties have mandated the UNCCD Secretariat and the Global mechanism to mobilize private sector engagement under the Business4Land initiative. The decision emphasizes the critical role of private sector advocacy, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies, and sustainable finance in addressing desertification, land degradation and drought challenges.The decision comes after the Business4Land Forum, which brought together the largest-ever number of private sector participants at a UNCCD COP — more than 400— from industries like finance, fashion, agri-food, and pharmaceuticals.
Stronger science on land and drought
Acknowledging the role of science as the foundation for sound policies,
Additionally, the Parties agreed on the continuation of UNCCD’s Science-Policy Interface (SPI), which was created at COP11 in 2013 to translate scientific findings into recommendations for decision-makers.
At COP16, for instance, the SPI presented definitive evidence that three-quarters of the Earth’s ice-free surface has become permanently drier in the past 30 years, with a predicted five billion people living in drylands by 2100, showing the urgency to take action.
The UNCCD report, The Global Threat of Drying Lands: Regional and global aridity trends and future projections, revealed that some 77.6% of Earth’s land has experienced drier conditions since the 1990s compared to the previous 30-year period. Over the same period, drylands — an arid area with low rainfall—expanded by about 4.3 million km2 equal to an area nearly a third larger than India, the world’s 7th largest country. Drylands now cover 40.6% of all land on Earth excluding Antarctica.
Seven of nine planetary boundaries are negatively impacted by unsustainable land use, highlighted the UNCCD report Stepping back from the precipice: Transforming land management to stay within planetary boundaries, produced in collaboration with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which explains how land degradation is undermining Earth’s capacity to sustain a growing human population.
The report reiterates that agriculture accounts for 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, 80% of deforestation, and 70% of freshwater use, and calls for an urgent land use transition to step away from the precipice.
According to UNCCD’s newly released World Drought Atlas and Economics of Drought Resilience reports droughts affect the livelihoods of 1.8 billion people worldwide, pushing already vulnerable communities to the brink. They also cost an estimated USD 300 billion per year, threatening key economic sectors such as agriculture, energy and water.
From Riyadh to Mongolia
The UNCCD Parties also made a decision encouraging the sustainable management, restoration and conservation of rangelands — vast ecosystems used for grazing — ahead of COP17, to be hosted by Mongolia in 2026 during the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
These ecosystems cover half of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and are the dominant land use in the world’s drylands, but have long been overlooked and are disappearing faster than rainforests.
The degradation of rangelands threatens one-sixth of global food supplies, potentially depleting one-third of the Earth’s carbon reserves.
Some two billion people who live in pastoral areas are among the world’s most vulnerable in the face of desertification, land degradation and drought.
