COP17: UNCCD chief says success must go beyond promises to implementation

As delegates await the adoption of the final text and resolutions of the two-week-long COP17 negotiations in Mongolia, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Yasmine Fouad, has said the conference must translate commitments into concrete action.

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Ms Fouad made the remarks while speaking with six UNCCD media fellows on the sidelines of the COP17 conference in Ulaanbaatar on Friday.

She described COP17 as the “COP of implementation,” stressing that the true measure of success would be whether decisions taken at the conference lead to action on the ground.

“Rest assured that COP17 is the COP of implementation. And here, implementation can mean one of two things: either what we put on paper to implement, or simply putting things on paper while remaining far away from actual implementation,” she said.

Ms Fouad said the conference was taking place against a backdrop of mounting geopolitical and environmental challenges, including increasing heatwaves and drought.

“One thing I want you to remember when you go back home is that this is the first COP in a real ‘trio,’ in a year full of geopolitical challenges. El Niño has proved that there will be more heatwaves and more drought. It is real; it is happening,” she said.

She said the UNCCD Secretariat came to Ulaanbaatar with a strong focus on food security, the land-water nexus and financing for land restoration and drought resilience.

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“One thing we wanted to change at this COP was to show that land is central to everyone and that people matter,” she said.

COP17

The 17th session of the UNCCD Conference of the Parties, which began in Ulaanbaatar on 17 August, is scheduled to conclude on 28 August, subject to agreement among parties.

The conference is being held under the theme, “Restoring Land. Restoring Hope,” and coincides with the UN-designated International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.

Negotiations have focused on efforts to combat land degradation and drought, strengthen land restoration and mobilise financing to support vulnerable countries and communities.

As the conference enters its final hours, delegates are still working to bridge differences over how to strengthen global action on land degradation, drought and sustainable financing.

Nigeria and the African bloc are pushing for sustainable financing mechanisms to address rangeland challenges and a legally binding framework for drought management.

In the early hours of Friday, a 15-page initial draft text was published and was still being scrutinised ahead of the final plenary later in the day.

Disagreements emerged during the opening plenary over procedural and substantive issues surrounding several agenda items.

Indigenous peoples, civil society organisations and young people have also raised concerns over their participation in the formal process, insisting that their voices must be reflected in decisions affecting their communities and livelihoods.

Some of the major issues at the centre of COP17 include the proposed drought framework, finance and investment, rangelands and pastoralists, and the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

‘People matter’

Reflecting on her engagements during the conference, Ms Fouad said the human dimension of land degradation had remained central to her work.

“So, we had the Silk Road Caravan, we had the pastoralists, and I was very keen, as the Executive Secretary of the Convention, to attend the Global Pastoralists Gathering that Mongolia organised, with participants from more than 100 countries,” she said.

She said engagements with Indigenous Peoples, local communities, young people, women and small island developing states had reinforced the need for a people-centred approach to land restoration.

“The conference’s message from all the events I have attended — including those involving Indigenous Peoples, local communities, the youth caucus and the gender caucus, as well as when I sat with the SIDS [Small Island Developing States] and listened to their needs — is that this is a human-centred convention. It will continue to go down to the grassroots,” she said.

According to her, one of her priorities was to ensure that COP17 produced tangible pledges on rangelands and land degradation.

“I was keen to ensure that there were real pledges on rangelands and land degradation, and that there was something new,” she said.

She pointed to financing commitments announced during the conference’s high-level opening, including $1.29 billion for rangelands through the coalition and an additional $2 billion from the Asian Development Bank for Asia and the Pacific.

Drought finance

Ms Fouad said the Secretariat also focused on ensuring that progress on drought financing would continue regardless of whether parties reached an agreement on a legally binding drought protocol at COP17.

“We moved on to drought because we knew that, even if a decision on a protocol or otherwise was not reached at this COP, I wanted to make sure that this would not hinder me, as Executive Secretary, from getting the money needed to ensure that countries that had developed their drought management plans would have access to funding,” she said.

She said two facilities — the Reversing the Flow (RTF) facility and the Drought Resilience Investment Facility (DRIF) — were among the mechanisms being used to support drought resilience.

According to her, the DRIF is particularly aimed at encouraging private-sector investment by helping to de-risk capital in drought-affected areas.

“I am saying these words because these are the elements of implementation for me. The elements are not only the decisions,” she said.

Ms Fouad said parties had already adopted a decision on the Intergovernmental Working Group (IWG), while discussions on drought had progressed and would continue at the next COP.

She acknowledged that some decisions could take longer to reach a conclusion.

“Maybe it will be a bit late until we gavel them, but that is the COP,” she said.

‘We may not have the whole package’

The UNCCD chief said the presence of 197 parties at the convention demonstrated the continued importance of multilateralism, despite the difficulty of reaching consensus.

“We are happy that the 197 Parties are represented at this Convention. We know it is not easy to get them to agree, but that is the beauty of both the COP and the UNCCD — that it has still gathered all 197 Parties,” she said.

She said the negotiations had also reinforced the importance of land as “natural infrastructure” and highlighted the continued relevance of multilateral cooperation.

“This makes land much more important as natural infrastructure, but it also makes the multilateral system much more important, particularly at a time when many say the system may be too fragmented and distracted,” she said.

She added, “We are working very hard to make this COP progress. We may not have the whole package, but definitely, we will have progress towards COP18.”

UNCCD chief sets one-year drought target

Asked by a PREMIUM TIMES correspondent what she would personally hold countries accountable for one year after COP17 and what would constitute a major failure before the next conference, Ms Fouad identified progress on drought as a key benchmark.

“After one year, I will want to see more progress on drought because we will keep pushing, as a Secretariat, on that topic,” she said.

She said she hoped that, before the next session of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC), expected by the end of 2027, countries would have developed a pipeline of bankable drought projects.

“As for how Parties are acting, this is always the case. We are a Convention built on a Party-driven process. We are facilitating, supporting and convening, but we will continue to push. That is perhaps different from other multilateral processes,” she said.

Migration agenda

On the postponement of the decision on migration, Ms Fouad said the issue would remain part of the UNCCD’s work programme.

“First of all, it will still be part of the work programme. We are still relying on the decision that came out of COP16, so the postponement did not stop our mandate to work on the issue,” she said.

She said the Secretariat would seek to broaden the political conversation by engaging ministers and institutions whose mandates touch on security, finance and human rights.

“The strategy is to engage more with those who are relevant to security, such as ministers of finance and ministers of defence. We will go to forums such as the Munich Security Council and engage with Geneva, because that is also part of the human rights dimension,” she said.

“So, we need to continue elevating the issue politically.”

READ ALSO: COP17: UN land summit ends in Mongolia with $1.3bn deal for restoration, drought resilience

Civil society participation

Ms Fouad dismissed concerns that the blockage of some civil society-related agenda items at COP17 could weaken participation in other major environmental conferences scheduled for later in the year.

Asked whether the situation could have implications for the biodiversity and climate COPs, she said: “No, no.”

Asked why, she said the party that blocked the items was neither a member of the biodiversity convention nor a party to the climate process.

On how delegates had responded to attempts to alter language in the negotiations, while preserving the substance of agreements, she acknowledged that compromises were inevitable in multilateral negotiations.

“There are always compromises that have to be made, but the name of the thing is always there because it is in the text of the Convention,” she said.

She added that the Secretariat was working with the COP Presidency to ensure the issue remained within the work programme.

“We are working hard with the COP Presidency to keep that in the work programme. So, let us wait until the end of the day to see whether the right things are in the work programme,” she said.