Read at : UNCCD News

http://newsbox.unccd.int/#Anchor-14210

From the Executive Secretary
Land is becoming a central element of the world’s efforts to cope with climate change and promote sustainable development. UNCCD Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja discusses how the Convention to Combat Desertification is coming into its own. Full story…

Welcome to our new online news service. Every two months, we aim to report on progress in the fight against land degradation and desertification in Africa, Asia, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Europe. There is much to tell. With the growing realization that land is central to the world’s efforts to cope with climate change and promote sustainable development, soil has become a new medium for policy convergence. Our Convention is coming into its own.

Hard science This first issue covers, among other things, the growing potential for joint action between the Rio conventions. Land degradation, climate change and biodiversity loss are tightly linked, and best confronted as one great challenge. We need more science about soil to promote that synergy, and, at long last, hard science is coming to replace the assumptions that hindered the Convention’s early development. To support this welcome trend, we are refashioning our Committee on Science and Technology into a broader source of data for effective policy.

Later this year, we will gather in Buenos Aires from 21 September to 2 October for the 9th Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD. Our decisions at COP9 will set the Convention’s future course and affect the lives of millions living in the world’s drylands.

A major aim at COP9 is to establish a monitoring system, built on results-based management approaches with commonly-agreed indicators, to support Parties in the implementation of UNCCD’s ten-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the implementation of the Convention (2008-2018). The indicators and the monitoring system will be at the core of new reporting guidelines to capture the most relevant information on investments made and results achieved in combating land degradation and mitigating the effects of drought.

(continued)

Luc Gnacadja
Executive Secretary
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertificatio