June 2014: To mark the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Secretariat prepared an infographic with information related to key national achievements in addressing desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) and achievements that could not have been accomplished without the UNCCD.

In other anniversary news, during a side event in Rome, Italy, on the theme ‘Land Belongs to the Future – Let’s Climate Proof it’ and on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the UNCCD, 17 June 2014, the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD’s new Liaison Office on Land, Security and Resilience (LLSR) was inaugurated. The Office is housed at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) headquarters. The liaison office had been opened on 1 April, when the Global Mechanism relocated from Rome, Italy, to Bonn, Germany — the seat of the UNCCD Secretariat. [Global Mechanism News Release about Liaison Office][Global Mechanism News Release about move to Bonn]

In further UNCCD news, on 25 June 2014 a partnership agreement was signed through which FAO will provide technical support for the inception-phase of the EU-funded FLEUVE project. The Global Mechanism of the UNCCD and FAO co-signed the agreement, and the Global Mechanism will manage the project, which will assist local stakeholders’ efforts to access landscape-level finance to build resilience in the face of climate change and land degradation. The FLEUVE project works in partnership with the FAO and its programme on the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative (GGWSSI), and includes the following networks of civil society organizations: RESAD, RADDO and Drynet. Through the project, micro-investment projects are being developed in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Senegal to expand economic opportunities and improve the public and private investment climate for sustainable land management for local communities. [Global Mechanism News Release][Land Policy & Practice news about FLEUVE]

Finally, among the decisions taken on 23 June by the Bureau of the Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC), were agreements to extend to 31 July 2014 the national reporting deadline for Parties and other entities, and to recommend that the Conference of the Parties (COP) Bureau consider postponing the November 2014 session of the CRIC to a later date. [UNCCD Infographic][Information on National Reporting]