This report highlights key developments and recent sustainability trends in agriculture, rural development, land, desertification and drought, five of the six themes being considered by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) at its 16th and 17th sessions (2008-2009).

This paper explores the ways in which the interlinked challenges of climate change and desertification are managed in Malawi. The authors examine the synergy and conflict between local autonomous adaptation strategies and national adaptation policies, which are in accordance with international commitments to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The state of the Arab environment stands at a pivotal juncture with numerous environmental problems both current and imminently threatening the region. Among the major challenges being faced are water scarcity, land degradation and desertification, inadequate waste management, coastal and marine environment degradation and air pollution.

This report highlights the major biological factors that contribute to ecosystem resilience under the projected impacts of global climate change. It assesses the potential consequences for biodiversity of particular adaptation activities under the thematic areas of the Convention on Biological Diversity, provides methodological considerations when implementing these activities, and highlights research and knowledge gaps.

The Integrated Drylands Development Programme (IDDP) is a global UNDP initiative to promote sustainable development in the drylands, and advance the implementation of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. This topic brief highlights the important role that gender plays in this context of sustainable development, in particular the role of women in the Arab States and Africa. In these regions, inequality and stereotypical gender norms often prevent women from contributing to the sustainable development of drylands, despite possessing a wealth of traditional knowledge and skills.

Land-use planning (LUP), an instrument of land governance, is often employed to protect land and humans against natural and human-induced hazards, strengthen the resilience of land systems, and secure their sustainability. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) underlines the critical role of appropriate local action to address the global threat of land degradation and desertification (LDD) and calls for the use of local and regional LUP to combat LDD and achieve land degradation neutrality. The paper explores the challenges of putting this call into practice.

in these ecosystems can easily result in widespread and severe land degradation and thus desertification.
Combined with global issues such as climate change, economic disparities, migration, and competing claims
on land, this often leads to a vicious cycle of aridity, land degradation, and productivity loss. In addition to
the harsh environmental conditions limiting land productivity, the socio-economic situation in drylands can
pose challenges as well, given that these regions are often characterised by remoteness, marginality, lowproductivity

Desire for Greener Land compiles options for Sustainable Land Management (SLM) in drylands. It is a result of the integrated research project DESIRE (Desertification Mitigation and Remediation of Land - A Global Approach for Local Solutions). Lasting five years (2007–2012) and funded within the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme, DESIRE brought together the expertise of 26 international research institutes and non-governmental organisations.

Le projet Action contre la désertification (ACD) appuie huit pays (le Burkina Faso, l’Éthiopie, Fidji, la Gambie, Haïti, le Niger, le Nigéria et le Sénégal) du Groupe des États d’Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique (ACP) dans la gestion durable et la restauration de leurs terres dégradées.

Across the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia, millions of newly planted trees struggle to survive amid adverse ecological conditions. They were planted by a wide variety of actors in an attempt to protect, restore, or modify the local environment, despite evidence of their negative consequences upon local ecosystems. This paper investigates how these afforestation projects both challenge and affirm recent theoretical work on conservation, while also providing key insights into the decision-making framework of land management across the world’s third largest desert region.

Land-use planning (LUP), an instrument of land governance, is often employed to protect land and humans against natural and human-induced hazards, strengthen the resilience of land systems, and secure their sustainability. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) underlines the critical role of appropriate local action to address the global threat of land degradation and desertification (LDD) and calls for the use of local and regional LUP to combat LDD and achieve land degradation neutrality. The paper explores the challenges of putting this call into practice.

Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) in partnership with Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners (ILEPA) and through the support of the Global Green Grants is implementing a project on Climate change, Livelihoods, and energy targeted at Women and Youth in Narok County.