COP17 advances $1.3bn for land restoration, puts rangelands at centre

Governments, development banks, investment funds and businesses attending the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) have announced $1.3 billion in new and pipeline financing for land restoration and drought resilience across 23 countries on five continents.

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This was announced on Monday during the plenary meeting at the COP17 venue in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital. The announcement of the finance mechanism placed rangelands at the centre of a growing global investment push, with Mongolia using its presidency of COP17 to advance financing for the ecosystems that dominate much of its landscape and support millions of pastoralists worldwide.

Of the $1.3 billion announced, $644.5 million has been identified as new finance, while $216.4 million has already been confirmed and is moving towards implementation, the UNCCD noted.

The announcement came against the backdrop of perceived huge financing gaps for meeting global land restoration commitments.

The Convention estimates that $355 billion will be required annually through 2030, compared with the current investment of about $77 billion, resulting in an annual shortfall of $278 billion.

Nigeria, alongside other African countries, seeks to advance a legally binding instrument on drought management. The proposed instrument would essentially establish a protocol for managing drought. Other areas include finance, which the Nigerian focal point person to the UNCCD said is crucial for securing more financial support to meet national needs and fund the country’s National Adaptation Plans.

According to the UNCCD Data Dashboard, approximately 11.96 per cent of Africa’s total land area was recorded as degraded in baseline reporting, while Nigeria reports roughly 23.41 per cent, or 21.07 million hectares, of its total land area as degraded.

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In Nigeria, authorities have said more than 50 per cent of the country’s rangelands and grazing routes have been degraded, a development that has contributed to farmer-herder conflicts affecting communities across the country for decades.

Rangelands take centre stage

On Monday, the UNCCD disclosed that a major component of the new financing is the Rangelands Flagship Initiative, currently valued at $1.2 billion across 45 named projects.

Launched in Ulaanbaatar during the United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, the initiative represents the largest single mobilisation for rangelands in the history of the UNCCD.

Rangelands cover more than half of the world’s land surface and support the livelihoods of about two billion people, including an estimated 500 million pastoralists.

However, the UNCCD explained that up to half of the world’s rangelands are degraded or at risk, threatening food production, livelihoods, biodiversity and resilience to drought.

The economic value of rangelands is estimated at between $21 trillion and $47 trillion annually through food production, water provision, carbon storage and biodiversity.

According to the UNCCD, restoring rangelands typically generates between $4 and $6 in benefits for every dollar invested. When broader public benefits, such as water supply, are included, the return can rise to as much as $36 per dollar invested.

Financial commitments

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is supporting coordination of the initiative through a $3.3 million investment in the UNCCD COP17 Legacy Project.

Over the past four years, GEF has also approved more than 50 projects worth over $300 million to support sustainable rangeland management, restoration and pastoralist livelihoods.

The Asian Development Bank has committed $113 million to the Green Inclusive Regional Agribusiness Fund, while the Green Climate Fund is supporting three projects, including $40 million for Resilient Rangelands in Northwestern Zimbabwe with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), as well as the TWENDE initiative in Kenya with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The Adaptation Fund has committed $9.1 million to locally led adaptation involving Indigenous Peoples and local communities across Africa.

Germany’s development agency, GIZ, and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development are supporting Forests4Future with $76 million, alongside three other programmes in Southern Africa.

Other projects include the $35 million Herding for Health initiative by Peace Parks Foundation and Conservation International, and the $22 million STELARR Investment Hub brought by the International Livestock Research Institute.

Twelve projects under the initiative are being delivered with the United Nations Development Programme, six with the United Nations Environment Programme and three with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Yasmine Fouad said the new commitments show a shift from identifying the financing gap to developing mechanisms to move investments into actual restoration projects.

“Land is not simply an environmental issue — it is economic infrastructure. It underpins food, water, jobs and stability, and when land fails, the costs are felt across economies and communities,” Ms Fouad said.

“What we are seeing in Ulaanbaatar is a shift from talking about the financing gap to building the pathways that can move investment into implementation.”

Chizuru Aoki, Head of the Multilateral Environmental Conventions and Funds Division of GEF, said rangelands had historically been underfunded despite their importance.

“Through the new UNCCD COP17 Legacy Project and other projects that are joining the Rangeland Flagship Initiative, the GEF is supporting the implementation of successful rangelands management and restoration at scale by combining our investments with strong partnerships,” she said.

Mongolia targets 10% green lending

Mongolia has also unveiled measures to increase domestic financing for land restoration, including sector-wide sustainable finance principles, a national green taxonomy, and a target to allocate 10 per cent of lending to green activities by 2030.

The country also launched a national Business 4 Land (B4L) Hub, bringing the UNCCD’s private-sector platform to the national level for the first time.

Russia subsequently launched its own B4L Hub, while Luxembourg announced plans to establish a Business 4 Land Foundation, and Germany provided funding for the B4L Finance Expert Group.

The initiatives aim to connect governments, businesses, financial institutions, and investment opportunities while addressing barriers that have historically discouraged private investment in land restoration.

Private-sector finance currently accounts for only about six per cent of global investment in land restoration.

Peter Bakker, president and chief executive officer of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said businesses needed bankable projects, reliable data and mechanisms to reduce early-stage investment risks.

“Business does not lack appetite for resilient supply chains, secure water and productive soil – it lacks bankable projects, credible data and a fair share of the early risk,” Mr Bakker said.

Development banks seek new investment mechanisms

The financing push was reinforced during a ministerial dialogue on innovative financial mechanisms, which brought together the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the GEF, and the Green Climate Fund.

Participants called for land, soil health and drought resilience investments to become more visible and trackable within existing nature finance categories.

They also backed the expansion of guarantees, first-loss capital and index-based insurance to attract private investment and manage risks.

The need for such instruments is particularly acute in Africa, where only three per cent of smallholder farmers have agricultural insurance, compared with about 20 per cent in other developing regions.

Participants also called for stronger project preparation facilities to develop investment-ready projects, particularly in least developed and fragile countries, as well as simpler access to multilateral funds.

Other financing mechanisms discussed included debt-for-nature swaps, nature-performance bonds, sustainability-linked bonds and country platforms.

At an African Union high-level event, the African Development Bank committed $100 million to the Zambezi River Basin programme, covering eight countries, alongside the Southern Africa Great Green Wall Accelerator.

Luxembourg committed €5 million in catalytic first-loss capital to the Drought Resilience Investment Facility, while Spain pledged €5 million for the second phase of the International Drought Resilience Alliance.

Germany also committed a further €11 million to CompensActions.

The Korea Forest Service, UNDP and the UNCCD Global Mechanism launched a call for proposals under the Greening Drylands Partnership, with $2.4 million in small grants expected to go directly to community-level implementers.

Financing gap remains huge

Despite the new commitments, officials acknowledged that the scale of the land restoration challenge cannot be met through grants alone.

Official development assistance contracted by 23.1 per cent in 2025, while about half of low-income countries are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress, according to the COP17 financing discussions.

The UNCCD estimates that the annual cost of inaction on land degradation is about $878 billion, while investment in healthy land could generate benefits of up to $1.8 trillion annually.

The Convention has therefore called for governments and investors to look beyond traditional development assistance, including through tax incentives for restoration, payments for ecosystem services and the reform of environmentally harmful subsidies.

An estimated $2.4 trillion in public subsidies currently support activities that can contribute to environmental degradation.

Separately, the FIELD facility has expressed an intention to catalyse an additional $2 billion in land restoration finance across Asia and the Pacific. The amount is an investment ambition rather than committed funding and is therefore excluded from the $1.3 billion announced at COP17.

The new financing commitments underline a central message emerging from COP17: restoring degraded land is increasingly being treated not only as an environmental obligation but also as an investment opportunity tied to food security, water, jobs, climate resilience and economic stability.