Collaboration with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
FAO and the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD) share common objectives with regard to supporting countries to address desertification, land degradation and drought. For this reason, the agencies have developed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to strengthen their collaboration on efforts to avoid, reduce and reverse land and soil degradation and increase resilience to drought, particularly in support of agriculture and food security. The cooperation covers a broad range of activities, which include but are not limited to: capacity development, knowledge exchange, provision of technical support and development of financing initiatives.
The main areas of cooperation and common interest to FAO and UNCCD are:
- avoiding, reducing and reversing land and soil degradation on agricultural lands through policy dialogue, technical assistance, capacity development and data and information systems;
- resilience to drought through policy dialogue, technical assistance, capacity development and data and information systems; and
- promoting learning and knowledge-sharing, communication engagement and awareness-raising in relevant global/regional initiatives and intergovernmental processes, and the development of other joint activities.
FAO collaborates closely with UNCCD in monitoring progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 15.3.1 on land degradation neutrality, for which UNCCD serves as the custodian agency. Through this collaboration, FAO contributes technical expertise, data, methodologies and tools to support countries in generating, analysing and reporting information on land degradation, ensuring that decision-making is informed by robust and harmonized data systems.
Under UNCCD secretariat capacity-building joint work program for the 2026 reporting process, FAO is playing a dual role. As a specialized United Nations agency with a global mandate, FAO contributes with technical guidance to the secretariat and the Regional Support Hubs throughout the 2026 UNCCD reporting process. In parallel, under the Global Environment Facility (GEF-8) “Pilot project for enabling activities for national reporting under the UNCCD with support for enhanced data and reporting”, FAO provides direct technical support and access to funding for 21 country Parties. This support focuses on implementing participatory processes and strengthening national institutional and technical capacities to assess land degradation and estimate SDG Indicator 15.3.1.
