Promising efforts to restore degraded land are now in the spotlight at a time when 40 per cent of the world’s land currently faces degradation and drought, threatening the livelihoods of over three billion people, the head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) said Wednesday, announcing three winners of its World Restoration Flagships…
She said Africa needs to move land restoration from the aid column into the investment column by developing bankable landscape programmes, strengthening land tenure, deploying risk-sharing instruments and ensuring that farmers and pastoralists benefit from carbon and other emerging environmental markets. As negotiations continue at the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat…
Countries are spending too little to restore degraded land even as the economic cost of doing nothing climbs towards $1 trillion a year, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned at a major UN land conference in Mongolia. Speaking at the high-level opening of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) meeting in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Ms….
The Professor argued that Africa does not primarily lack scientific knowledge to address land degradation and drought; rather, the continent faces gaps in data continuity, technology deployment, local-scale evidence and the ability to translate scientific findings into policy and action. In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES on the sidelines of COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Oluseyi…
From Ecuador to Bangladesh, a new generation of entrepreneurs is turning land restoration into economic opportunity. Whether repurposing agricultural waste, building greenhouses or deploying AI-powered sensors, they are showing, with support from a United Nations-backed initiative, that restoring land can also generate income and improve livelihoods. In Senegal, Daniel Halman is working with a simple…
As the 17th session of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification enters its final week in Ulaanbaatar, ministers and global leaders will focus on finance, water, land, and food systems. The second and decisive week of the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, UNCCD COP17, began on Monday, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia,…
Footage circulating on social media shows dozens of migrants arriving by boat on Spain’s southeastern coast at Cala Del Barco beach. Spanish authorities reported that the Civil Guard was able to locate 62 individuals who were on the boat. Published On 21 Aug 202621 Aug 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share…
What if the infrastructure needed to fight climate change could also help repair the land beneath it? At a UN desertification conference this week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, experts at a side-event examined how renewable energy expansion can co-exist with land protection and restoration, spotlighting examples from around the world. To name a few, degraded mining…
Desertification is not the spread of deserts. It is the slow degradation of fertile land – a process that now affects 40 percent of the Earth’s land surface and leaves around 100 million hectares of healthy land unproductive every year. As governments gather in Mongolia this week for the UN’s Cop17 desertification summit, scientists say…
American-born entrepreneur Daniel Yu’s most recent venture is the Africa Jobs Fund, which seeks to invest in companies that can create jobs at scale for Africans and raise incomes. It focuses on two areas: international labour mobility and export manufacturing. He previously founded Wasoko, a multimillion-dollar company that connects informal retailers in East Africa with…
