About RAIZ

The COP30 Action Agenda and RAIZ objectives

The objectives of RAIZ are fully aligned with the COP30 Presidency's third pillar, "Transformation of agriculture and food systems," specifically goal 8 on land restoration and sustainable agriculture. The global effort aims to accelerate the restoration of agricultural lands by fostering innovation and cooperation in the financial ecosystem, through several key actions:

1. Map degraded landscapes to prioritize areas for investment: An interactive mapping tool will respond to the need for accurate analysis, enabling funding to be directed to areas with the highest potential for productivity gains.
2. Identify and cost investable solutions: Governments will be supported to identify investable restoration solutions and develop a Farmland Restoration Finance Assessment outlining costs, returns, funding gaps and identifying possible sources of finance.
3. Design co-investment mechanisms to scale financing: RAIZ will convene governments and interested investors to build or tailor co-investment vehicles that leverage public finance to derisk private investments and reduce the cost of capital.
4. Foster collaboration and knowledge exchange within the restoration ecosystem: RAIZ will consolidate lessons from national experiences into case studies and guidance to inform global peer learning and improve enabling conditions for restoration finance.

RAIZ acts as an accelerator of current global action on land restoration, with a focus on agricultural lands, and works closely with global key initiatives, partners, and stakeholders with the aim of contributing towards the UNCCD target of restoring 250 million hectares of farmland by 2030.

Restoring land for a better future: building on global momentum

• In 2022, countries at the UNCCD COP15 adopted the Land, Life and Legacy Declaration, calling for a systemic approach to land conservation and restoration with the goal of achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030. At COP16, in 2024, countries renewed this commitment, agreeing to improve the health of agricultural lands and soils to simultaneously reduce land degradation and strengthen resilience to drought, and launching the Riyadh Agenda. 
• Under the CBD, restoring degraded ecosystems is recognized as essential to preventing biodiversity loss and fostering the sustainable use of biological diversity. At COP15 in 2022, countries approved the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). It sets a vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050 and includes 23 biodiversity targets to be achieved by 2030. Target 2 aims restore at least 30 percent of degraded ecosystems, target 10 aims to ensure that agricultural areas are sustainably managed and restored, and target 11 aims to restore, maintain and enhance nature’s contributions to people.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land reports that about 20 percent of global land is already degraded due to human activities.
  Meanwhile, approximately 23 percent of human induced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) come from Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU)
  
• Efforts to protect, conserve and restore natural ecosystems, inlcuding implementing multi-sectoral solutions, such as land use management, sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems and nature-based solutions, increase sustainable and regenerative production and equitable access to adequate food and nutrition for all are central the Global Stocktake agreed at COP28.
• Under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDC) widely include land use (142 NDC) and agriculture (141 NDC) addressing both mitigation and adaptation.
  One-hundred NDCs identify ecosystem restoration, afforestation, and reforestation as priority actions for achieving climate mitigation.
  
  More specifically, several countries adopted land restoration goals under the UNCCD and the UNFCCC. These include Brazil (40 million hectares), Nigeria (4 million hectares), Kenya (5.1 million hectares), Tanzania (5.2 million hectares), Madagascar ( 4 million hectares), South Africa (3.6 million hectares), Tanzania (5.2 million hectares), Zambia (2 million hectares), Zimbabwe (2 million hectares), Mali (10 million hectares), Nigeria (4 million hectares), Niger (3.2 million hectares), Côte d’Ivoire (5 million hectares), Burkina Faso (5 million hectares), Sudan (14.6 million hectares) China (25 million hectares), Germany (2 million hectares of peatland), El Salvador (1 million hectares), Bolivia (725,000 hectares), and Panama (130,000 hectares).
• The urgency to align countries’ commitments on global food security gained renewed momentum with the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty agreed at the G20 in 2024.

Building on this multilateral progress, COP30 represents a unique opportunity to convene a high-level global commitment to restore degraded land as a unique opportunity to catalyze action on climate, biodiversity, desertification and food security.

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