22 September 2016: The Global Mechanism (GM) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has announced that 100 countries – roughly half of all UNCCD signatories – have embarked on the process of establishing national targets on Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 15:3 (By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world).

The LDN Target-Setting Programme (TSP) was launched in 2014 with a group of 14 pilot countries and is coordinated by the GM and the UNCCD Secretariat.

The overall objective of the TSP is to enable countries to define national baselines, set voluntary LDN targets and identify measures to achieve them. The programme provides direct technical and financial support to all interested affected country Parties, focused on three key areas: accessing the best available data for target setting; conducting multi-stakeholder consultation processes to mainstream LDN into national SDG agendas; and identifying investment opportunities for LDN implementation.

Countries across all five UNCCD Regional Implementation Annexes have embarked on target-setting activities and comprise: 43 countries from Annex 1 (Africa); 20 countries from Annex 2 (Asia); 21 countries from Annex 3 (Latin America and the Caribbean); and 16 countries from Annex 4 and 5 (North Mediterranean Central and Eastern Europe).

The GM will present a status report of the TSP during an interactive discussion at the 15th session of the UNCCD’s Committee for the Review of the Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 15). CRIC 15 will convene as a special intersessional meeting on methodological issues relating to the future strategic framework of the UNCCD and its corresponding monitoring and reporting framework.

Among other issues, the discussions will review the outcomes of regional TSP inception workshops conducted in 2016, highlight experiences from countries involved in the programme and offer further guidance on LDN target setting.

The TSP discussions at CRIC 15, together with voluntary progress reports on countries’ implementation of the UNCCD’s 10-Year Strategy (2008-2018), will further inform the work of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IWG) on the future strategic framework of the Convention. Following CRIC 15, the IWG will finalize its methodological guidance for consideration by the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13), scheduled to take place in late 2017. [Global Mechanism Press Release] [UNCCD Newsletter] [The LDN Target-Setting Programme]