22 September 2013: The 10th Round Table of Members of Parliament convened in parallel to the Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 11).

The meeting, which took place in Windhoek, Namibia, from 20-21 September 2013, was co-organized by the Namibian National Parliament and the UNCCD Secretariat. It gathered 65 Parliamentarians from 18 countries to consider their contribution to the UNCCD implementation process and the achievement of a land-degradation neutral world in the context of the post-2015 development agenda.

During the meeting, the Speaker of the Chad National Assembly announced a voluntary contribution in the amount of US $100,000 to support the activities of the newly established Steering Committee of Member of Parliamentarians.

The Round Table issued a declaration at the end of the session, which will be presented during the COP 11 closing plenary, on 27 September 2013. The declaration indicates that Parliamentarians and Parliaments should, inter alia: enact an enabling legislation and identify standards, aligning them with the provisions of the UNCCD and its 10-Year Strategy, as well as with the ‘land-degradation neutrality’ goal; promote the mainstreaming of desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) issues into the domestic and the development cooperation agenda; work towards improving the quality of development cooperation and increasing the volume of official development assistance; and give higher priority to land degradation issues and water scarcity problems to overcome the marginalization of dryland communities. [UNCCD Press Release][Declaration by Members of Parliament]