UNCCD - United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

Purpose

Accelerating rates of desertification and land degradation in developing countries exacerbate poverty, vulnerability, and insecurity and reduce resilience to the impacts of climate change. Poor agricultural and forestry practice is the main driver of land degradation. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 15.3 commits the global community to combat desertification and restore degraded land and soil and UNCCD is the most important multilateral mechanism to achieve this target. Since rejoining the UNCCD in 2017, Canada has underlined the potential for women’s empowerment and gender equality to enhance global efforts to achieve land degradation neutrality (i.e. no net additional land degradation). Through the project ‘Integrating Gender Equality in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)’, valued at up to $6 million over 5 fiscal years, Canada will support UNCCD in implementing its 2017 Gender Action Plan in order to more effectively achieve combat desertification and land degradation.