This article was written in September 2026, ahead of CBD COP17.
Global policy discussions on environmental governance, and the collective response to global environmental challenges (climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation) kicked off last month in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification convened at COP17 Mongolia in the second half of August to agree on the direction governments should take in combatting desertification and land degradation in the years to come.
In October, governments will convene in Yerevan, Armenia to deliberate on the global response to biodiversity loss and on global nature conservation strategies (CBD COP17), and in November governments meet in Antalya, Türkiye for climate negotiations (UNFCCC COP31).
This article is the first of a series that aims to advance the discussion on how each of these conventions have integrated land tenure and land governance, and the opportunities to continue doing so (at the global, national and sub-national levels) based on the actions governments agree to prioritize at each of the three COPs.
The basis for linking land governance to environmental action is the fact that for many non-industrialized countries, environmental action is often land-based. Actions like forest protection and conservation are among the examples of land-based actions that contribute to all three Rio conventions (UNCCD, CBD and the UNFCCC) – by ensuring forest lands are not degraded, biodiversity hotspots are protected, and climate change is mitigated through sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Thus, how land is used, administered and governed has significant implications for the success of environmental interventions.
While environmental interventions in the global South rely heavily on rural lands, rural communities still depend on these lands for their livelihoods and food security. The result is significant competition over land and land uses. National governments often find themselves in situations where they commit to land-intensive environmental targets such as forest protection and environmental conservation while still having to improve rural livelihoods which are dependent on land uses that compete with the same commitments and targets. Limited recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land tenure rights, and the limited recognition of their role as stewards of land and historical and present agents of conservation further delinks environmental action from land governance and consequently limits the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental interventions.
As such, governments must balance their environmental commitments and targets with their rural development investments and land governance priorities. Responsible land governance as prescribed by the Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Tenure (VGGT) offers a path to achieve both in a sustainable manner. The details on how to go about this balancing act for each of the three Rio Conventions varies based on the opportunities existing in the current frameworks and past decisions.
Opportunities for Advancing Responsible Land Governance within the UNCCD framework
At UNCCD COP17, Parties had to navigate the complexities of deliberating proposals to remove key items (gender, synergies with other Conventions, and engagement with civil society and Indigenous Peoples) from the COP agenda. Despite this, the land tenure decision that was adopted at COP17 presents more opportunities for advancing the land tenure topic and strengthening land governance to enhance the global and national responses to land degradation and desertification. In addition, the land tenure decision includes considerations that can serve as entry points for advancing the topics that Parties to the convention did not agree on.
The opportunities and entry points put forward in this article are most applicable for non-government institutions and organizations working to advance responsible land governance at the global, national or sub-national level, with a specific focus on the intersection of land governance and environmental action. However, the government actors including national ministries coordinating UNCCD activities at national level, UNCCD national focal points and land tenure focal points can also apply and act on these recommendations to enhance how they are integrating land tenure into their national Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) plans. Collaborations where national ministries work with non-government entities to implement the activities recommended herein are more likely to yield lasting outcomes.
As such, a crucial first step for all the recommendations is for non-government actors to establish a relationship with the national ministries coordinating UNCCD activities, and especially the UNCCD national focal points and land tenure focal points. Information on the UNCCD national focal point (name, contact and Ministry) and other relevant country information is available on the UNCCD country profiles page.
Recommendations for different actors operating at the global and national level to consider, as relates to the UNCCD land tenure decision of 2026, are as follows:
Recognition of the CBD
In its preambular paragraphs, the COP17 land tenure decision recognizes the targets on responsible land governance, secure land tenure and access to natural resources, as well as related land indicators contained in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and its monitoring processes. This paragraph, though not actionable, remains a valid recognition of the interconnectedness of the three Rio conventions and is a ‘soft recall’ for the need to apply a synergistic approach when implementing actions to achieve the objectives of the conventions.
More considerations for integrating land tenure into the implementation of the convention
While past UNCCD land tenure decisions include a general call to Parties to integrate land tenure into their plans to combat desertification and land degradation, the decision that Parties adopted in Ulaanbaatar was more detailed. The decision encourages Parties to integrate land tenure while aligning to national legislation and governance systems, and including considerations for customary and communal rights of access to and use of associated natural resources, such as water, trees and grazing resources. This paragraph also included reference to women and girls as well as people in vulnerable situations. While the inclusion of women and girls is in this case specific to land tenure, this reference provides an entry point for advancing the gender topic within the UNCCD, as this convention is considered the ‘land convention’. Secure land tenure rights for women and girls remains a key element for strengthening the response to desertification and land degradation as women make up 43% of agricultural labour force in developing countries, despite accounting for less than 15% of landholders globally. In its preambular paragraphs, the decision recognizes that tenure security empowers land users to be responsible stewards by incentivizing their adoption of and investment in long-term sustainable land and water management, drought resilience-building and other land restoration practices. The reference to women and girls in the first paragraph of the decision is a recognition that insecure tenure rights for women disincentivizes a key group of land users from implementing sustainable land management practices, and consequently hinders the collective effort to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).
In this regard, the opportunity for global and national organizations advancing and advocating for secure land rights and responsible land governance is in developing projects and programs that can support national contributions responding to country-specific women’s land rights challenges. This land tenure decision reemphasizes the need for investing in such projects and programs and is the most recent global policy decision that governments and non-government actors can refer to when developing the projects and programs.
National consultations on land tenure
The COP17 land tenure decision enhanced the call for consultations on land tenure by calling on Parties to conduct these consultations at the national and sub-national levels, in an inclusive and participatory manner. The decision further called on Parties to partner with civil society in convening and conducting these dialogues and encouraged Parties who have conducted these consultations to share their experiences with the UNCCD Secretariat. The essence of this call from the decision is for Parties that have conducted these consultations (Kenya, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Senegal) to continue informing other Parties on how to undertake this, especially by documenting the national activities that were agreed upon (and implemented) as a result of these dialogues. Ultimately, the success of these consultations will depend on the diversity of stakeholders participating in them.
The Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership has been leading efforts to strengthen governments’ integration of land governance into climate interventions. For the countries that are part of the FCLP’s Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, national consultations should engage the FCLP government focal points to ensure alignment of these initiatives and as a demonstration of the synergistic approach referenced in recent decisions of all three Rio conventions.
While the national consultations are typically a government-led exercise, there is an opportunity for (global and national) land sector actors and national multistakeholder platforms on land governance to support the national consultations by engaging with respective ministries that coordinate implementation of UNCCD activities to design the consultation framework. The non-government entities at the national level can also lead the efforts to mobilize resources needed to conduct these consultations. In pursuing this opportunity, non-government entities should engage the national ministries coordinating UNCCD activities at the national level to get a better understanding of the national plans as relates to the UNCCD, and co-develop the objectives that can be met through convening the national consultations as prescribed in the land tenure decision.
Differentiated impacts of tenure insecurity on populations
The land tenure decision adopted in Ulaanbaatar invites Parties to disaggregate relevant data and to develop corresponding indicators through their national statistics offices and systems with the intention of better understanding the differentiated impacts of land tenure insecurity on populations. To effectively deliver on this while using resources optimally, Parties can include this (gender disaggregated land data and collaboration with national statistics offices) as a deliverable under the national consultations on land tenure. Ideally, this will mean having officers from national statistics institutions participate in these consultations.
There is an opportunity for global and national research organizations, academia and civil society to collaborate with national ministries coordinating the implementation of UNCCD activities in undertaking research that will provide insights that national governments can build on in understanding the differentiated impacts of land tenure insecurity on populations. The insights obtained through these activities will also be useful in informing the analyses conducted by the Global Land Observatory and its Technical Reference Group, and in informing future editions of the State of Land Tenure and Governance (SLTG) report.
Land tenure focal points
The COP17 land tenure decision continued in calling for the nomination of land tenure focal points to support UNCCD National Focal Points in their efforts to integrate land tenure into national Land Degradation Neutrality Plans, and in implementing COP land tenure decisions (COP14, COP15, COP16 and COP17). Land tenure focal points offer a unique opportunity for integrating land tenure into national UNCCD plans and activities as they would enable Parties to institutionalize UNCCD land tenure decisions at the national level. Unlike its sister conventions (the UNFCCC and the CBD), the UNCCD framework at the national level only includes the National Focal Points and does not include additional focal points who support the implementation of the convention. Additionally, the ministry teams coordinating UNCCD activities appear to get less political attention (and less financial resources) than the UNFCCC and CBD. In some cases, this may result in a situation where the UNCCD National Focal Point may not be able to sufficiently unpack the land tenure decisions and implement them at national level. Land tenure focal points can support National Focal Points in detailing the country-specific land-tenure- and land-governance-related activities that should be prioritized to enhance land tenure with the aim of advancing national Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) measures. These activities include (but are not limited to): conducting national dialogues on land tenure, conducting research into how land tenure insecurity impedes national LDN plans, coordinating the collection or consolidation of land data and gender disaggregated data from land ministries, lands agencies and national statistics offices, and reporting on land indicators as required by UNCCD reporting frameworks.
In principle, land tenure focal points should strengthen how land tenure is integrated into UNCCD activities by providing additional (land governance) technical expertise to the National Focal Point. This expertise will likely be found in national lands ministries, agriculture ministries, or planning ministries. In practice, each Party would have to apply a country-specific criteria in nominating a land tenure focal point; the criterion that is most practicable for the UNCCD National Focal Point should be prioritized. The opportunity for both government and non-government actors working in the UNCCD space will be to first identify the land tenure issues that can either enhance or hinder their national efforts to achieve land degradation neutrality, then identifying the activities (from activities listed in UNCCD land tenure decisions) that would resolve these land tenure issues. Alternatively, Parties can nominate land tenure focal points to carry out these tasks.
National level government and non-government actors will also have to reflect on their respective institutional arrangements to identify where the land tenure focal point should be domiciled. Some Parties may consider nominating land tenure focal points from national lands ministries or national land institutions, while others may opt to nominate land tenure focal points from environment ministries or agriculture ministries to ensure close coordination with the UNCCD national focal point. Ultimately, national level coordination of UNCCD activities, strategies for enhancing land restoration plans, and technical land tenure expertise should converge to support the implementation of land tenure decisions.
The land tenure decision adopted in Ulaanbaatar also calls on the UNCCD, FAO and other key partners to build the capacity of National Focal Points and land tenure focal points. This means that regardless of the criteria any government applies in nominating a land tenure focal point, there will likely be sufficient external support for the land tenure focal points to conduct their duties.
Overall, the opportunities for non-government actors as pertains to UNCCD land tenure focal points are in: advocating for the nomination of land tenure focal points, supporting land tenure focal points in determining land tenure and land governance priorities that can enhance Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) plans, and supporting data collection and analysis that can inform national LDN plans in the manner prescribed in the land tenure decisions adopted at COP15, COP16 and COP17.
Requests to the Secretariat
Parties to the UNCCD tasked the convention’s Secretariat with collaborating with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and other key partners in supporting Parties to integrate land tenure into their national UNCCD / LDN plans, and in building the capacity of national focal points, land tenure focal points, reporting officers and other relevant actors. The opportunity herein is for global organizations working to advance secure land tenure and responsible land governance to develop capacity building initiatives, projects and programs that target UNCCD national focal points and land tenure focal points. The capacity building initiatives can aim to conduct diagnosis of national land governance challenges that hinder national LDN initiatives, retraining focal points on the VGGT, the 2018-2030 Strategic Framework of the UNCCD, and the UNCCD Gender Action Plan, as well as training focal points on the VGGT & LDN Technical Guide. A direct and immediate initiative to build on in this regard would be the UNCCD-FAO Joint Initiative on Land Tenure that was among the events that inspired the proposal to have land tenure focal points under the UNCCD institutional framework. Another key opportunity would be for global and national organizations working on land tenure and land governance to make use of networks such as GAL (Global Action for Land) to deliberate on these opportunities and challenges and strategizing on how to advance global commitments on responsible land governance based on what Parties agreed to in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in August.
Featured image: Gobi desert steppe, Mongolia. Photo by Orgio89 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0).
