Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought And/Or Desertification, Particularly in Africa

A/RES/80/139View PDF

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A document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 18eImplementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, published in 2025.

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29 versions · 1998–2025

2025A/RES/80/139Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in AfricaLatestCompare with previous version
2024A/RES/79/207Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in AfricaCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/154Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in AfricaCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/166Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in AfricaCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/206Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in AfricaCompare with previous version

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3 entities

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What subjects does this mandate have?

4 topics

Africa Desertification Drought Control Land Degradation

What does this mandate say?

43 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of resolution 79/207 on the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa;

Notes the recent appointment of the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and expresses its support for her tenure;

Welcomes the convening of the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, held in Riyadh from 2 to 13 December 2024, under the theme “Our land. Our future”, and the adoption of its decisions and calls for their full implementation, and looks forward to the convening of the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties, to be held in Ulaanbaatar, from 17 to 28 August 2026;

Also welcomes the convening of the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as the Meetings of the Parties to the Protocols to the Convention, held in Cali, Colombia, from 21 October to 1 November 2024, under the theme “Peace with nature”, as well as the two resumed sessions of the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, held online from 3 to 6 December 2024 and in Rome, Italy, from 25 to 27 February 2025, takes note of their adopted decisions, and looks forward to the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties and the meetings of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meetings of the Parties to the Protocols to the Convention, to be held in Yerevan, Armenia, from 18 to 30 October 2026;

Further welcomes the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and urges its early, inclusive and effective implementation;

Urges the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the agreed intergovernmentally negotiated outcomes and decisions of the subsequent United Nations climate change conferences;

Invites Member States to support efforts to implement the strategic objectives of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa;

Welcomes the voluntary commitment of the Parties to the Convention to accelerate the restoration of 1 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030 by improving data gathering and monitoring to track progress against the achievement of land restoration commitments and establishing a new partnership model for large-scale integrated landscape investment programmes;

Strongly encourages the Parties to the Convention to apply and align with the 2018–2030 Strategic Framework of the Convention, to consider refining their voluntary Land Degradation Neutrality targets, as appropriate, and mainstream those targets in their national policies, programmes, plans and processes relating to desertification, land degradation and drought, and to implement the Strategic Framework, taking into account the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development;

Welcomes the work of the Intergovernmental Working Group to oversee the midterm evaluation process related to the 2018–2030 Strategic Framework of the Convention, takes note of its recommendations from the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties, and encourages Parties, with the support of the Convention secretariat, to consider its findings, implement its recommendations and strengthen monitoring, reporting, resource mobilization and access to funding from multiple sources to advance actions, including for the development of large-scale projects to combat desertification and land degradation and mitigate the effect of drought;

Reaffirms that reducing land degradation and achieving land degradation neutrality has the potential to act as an accelerator and integrator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and respond to the overall objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Encourages Member States to pursue considering target 15.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals as an integrator and accelerator to achieve other Sustainable Development Goals;

Reiterates the need to combat desertification, reduce land degradation, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world, recalls with appreciation the voluntary Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Programme consistent with the Convention and the work of the secretariat of the Convention and partners to assist Parties to the Convention in carrying out voluntary target-setting activities, emphasizes the need for capacity-building and opportunities for Parties that have yet to set land degradation neutrality targets, and in this respect reiterates its invitation to Parties to the Convention that have not yet subscribed to the programme to do so;

Recognizes that sustainable land management approaches and technologies, including through nature-based solutions, ecosystem-based approaches and other management and conservation approaches, in line with resolution 5/5 of the United Nations Environment Assembly, constitute promising options to evaluate and consider in connection with sequestering carbon and enhancing the resilience of people and ecosystems affected by desertification, land degradation and drought, as well as the adverse effects of climate change and biodiversity loss;

Also recognizes the launch of the Communities of Learning and Practice on Drought Management, aimed at engaging national focal points and drought experts across countries and regions, promoting bottom-up approaches, utilizing the integrated components of the Convention’s Drought Toolbox and supporting the dissemination of lessons learned to national, regional, and global processes;

Further recognizes the importance of applying new and innovative technologies and enabling policies and approaches, as well as sharing best practices, in combating desertification, land degradation and drought, as well as enhancing drought resilience, and requests the Secretary-General to continue to identify, as appropriate, those technologies, enabling policies and best practices in his report on the implementation of the present resolution;

Encourages the entities of the United Nations system, when designing and implementing their programmes and projects, to take into account the role of achieving land degradation neutrality as a potential accelerator to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals;

Underlines the importance of comprehensive reporting, follow-up and review at the global, national and regional levels, as appropriate, in order to track progress in the implementation of the Convention, welcomes in this regard the convening of the twenty second session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention in Riyadh, from 2 to 13 December 2024, and looks forward to the convening of the twenty-third session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention in Panama City from 1 to 5 December 2025;

Reiterates the invitation to Parties to the Convention to take measures to ensure, as appropriate, that their relevant institutions adopt a proactive approach to drought management and integrate drought resilience and risk management, sustainable livestock and agricultural policies, drought forecasting work, sustainable water management and climate information and climate change impact assessments into relevant policymaking processes and initiatives;

Takes note of the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership, with a view to ensuring its timely and effective support to countries vulnerable to drought and land degradation;

Reiterates its invitation to the Parties to the Convention to provide the Executive Secretary of the Convention with full support in the fulfilment of her mandate and in promoting the implementation of the Convention;

Stresses the urgent need to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change, extreme weather events and sand and dust storms, and in this regard urges Member States to continue to engage in adaptation planning processes and to enhance cooperation in disaster risk reduction;

Recognizes the contributions of Indigenous Peoples and of local communities, including their knowledge, to combating desertification, land degradation and drought;

Invites the United Nations Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, which was formed at the twenty-fourth meeting of the senior officials of the Environment Management Group, in September 2018, and other relevant United Nations entities to continue their collaboration to assist affected country Parties in developing and implementing national and regional policies on sand and dust storms;

Recalls its resolution 78/314 of 10 July 2024, in which it proclaimed 2025–2034 the United Nations Decade on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, within existing structures and available resources, with the aim of enhancing international and regional cooperation and supporting and scaling up efforts to prevent, halt and mitigate the negative effects of sand and dust storms, especially on affected countries;

Recognizes that gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls remain a crucial contribution to the effective implementation of the Convention, including its 2018–2030 Strategic Framework, and to the achievement of the Goals of the 2030 Agenda, stresses the importance of Parties to the Convention and partners striving to ensure the equal participation of women and men in planning, decision-making and implementation at all levels and further achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, as well as women’s full, equal, effective and meaningful participation in desertification, land degradation and drought-related policies and activities, and also stresses the importance of the effective implementation of the four priority thematic areas of the Gender Action Plan adopted by the parties to the Convention;

Reiterates the invitation to the secretariat and the Global Mechanism of the Convention to continue to collaborate and build partnerships with the secretariats of the other Rio conventions, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), other United Nations entities, international organizations and other relevant organizations to explore further ways of strengthening awareness-raising, improving the Gender Action Plan and developing further tools and guidelines for the use of Parties in the thematic areas of the Gender Action Plan and the gender-responsive implementation of the Convention;

Recalls the invitation to Parties to the Convention to legally recognize rights to equal use and ownership of land for women and the enhancement of women’s equal access to land and land tenure security, as well as the promotion of gender-sensitive measures to combat desertification, land degradation and drought and achieve land degradation neutrality, taking into account the national context, and in this context notes the Abidjan Declaration on Achieving Gender Equality for Successful Land Restoration, which promotes all measures necessary to identify and eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, with particular attention to the rights of older women, widows, women with disabilities and young women;

Encourages Parties to the Convention to follow the principles of implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security in the implementation of activities to combat desertification, land degradation and drought;

Encourages the public and private sectors to continue to invest in developing, adapting and scaling up the application of technologies, enabling policies, methods and tools to combat desertification, land degradation and drought in different regions, and to boost knowledge exchange, including of traditional knowledge with the consent of the knowledge holders, skills training, capacity-building and sharing of technologies on mutually agreed terms;

Encourages Parties to the Convention to continue to promote the prevention of desertification, land degradation and drought with an integrated landscape approach by sustainably managing land and water resources, avoiding practices that degrade land and rehabilitating and restoring already degraded land;

Encourages also developed countries Party to the Convention and other relevant stakeholders to actively support the efforts of developing countries Party to the Convention in promoting sustainable land management practices and in seeking to achieve a land degradation-neutral world by providing substantial financial resources from all sources, facilitated access to appropriate technology on mutually agreed terms and other forms of support, including through capacity-building measures;

Recognizes the benefits gained from cooperation through the sharing of climate and weather information, forecasting and early warning systems related to desertification, land degradation and drought, while also taking account of sand and dust storms, at the global, regional and subregional levels, and in this regard likewise recognizes the need for further cooperation between Parties to the Convention and relevant organizations in the sharing of related information, forecasting and early warning systems;

Calls upon the United Nations entities to mainstream drought resilience in their programmes when supporting countries prone to droughts or already affected, with an emphasis on enhancing preparation and resilience, noting the need for drought management through, inter alia, impactful policies, early warning systems, preparedness and mitigation, land restoration, sustainable agricultural and livestock policies and related actions to advance the neutrality of land degradation, in countries affected by drought and/or desertification;

Encourages all relevant entities of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, to harness opportunities for leveraging synergies among the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other relevant multilateral environmental agreements, as well as the 2030 Agenda, and in this respect welcomes the ongoing efforts to strengthen synergies among the secretariats of the aforementioned conventions;

Takes note of the United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification and the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and calls for measures to explore and promote consumption and production patterns that conserve and protect land;

Welcomes the convening of the thirtieth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Belém, Brazil, from 10 to 21 November 2025, and looks forward to the convening of the thirty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in 2026;

Notes with appreciation the financial contributions that have been made by Member States and other donors towards the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund, and invites Member States and other donors to make further contributions to the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund and the drought initiative of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa;

Decides to include, in the United Nations calendar of conferences and meetings for the year 2026 and subsequent years, the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention and each of its subsidiary bodies, and requests the Secretary-General to continue to make provisions for those sessions in the proposed programme budgets;

Acknowledges the commitment of the Parties to the Convention to boost drought resilience by identifying the expansion of arid, semi-arid, dry subhumid areas and drylands, improving national policies and early warning systems linked to early action, learning and sharing knowledge, building partnerships and coordinating action, and mobilizing drought finance to support a shift from reactive to proactive drought management, and recognizes the ongoing efforts of the Coalition for Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure, the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership, the Early Warnings for All initiative and the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative;

Also acknowledges the decision of the Conference of the Parties at its fifteenth session with respect to promoting decent land-based jobs for youth and land-based youth entrepreneurship and strengthening youth participation in the processes relating to the Convention;

Reaffirms the continuation, for a further five-year period, of the current institutional linkage and related administrative arrangements with the United Nations Secretariat, to be reviewed by both the General Assembly and the Conference of the Parties no later than 31 December 2026;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly, at its eighty-first session, a report on the implementation of the present resolution, and decides to include in the provisional agenda of its eighty-first session, under the item entitled “Sustainable development”, the sub-item entitled “Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa”.

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