As the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) convenes in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from August 17 to 28, UN Deputy Secretary-General and UNCCD Executive Secretary Dr. Yasmine Fouad has laid out a clear vision for the gathering. In an exclusive dialogue, she stressed that while nations have borders, ecosystems do not, making cross-border and cross-sector collaboration essential in tackling land degradation. The true benchmark for COP17's success, she argued, will not be the number of resolutions adopted, but whether the land improves and whether people benefit on the ground.

Closing a $278 Billion Annual Funding Gap: The Private Sector's Pivotal Role

Mobilizing capital at scale is critical to addressing land degradation, bolstering drought resilience, and advancing sustainable land management, yet the financial shortfall remains staggering. According to UNCCD's recent needs assessment, global investment in land restoration and drought resilience must reach approximately $355 billion annually from 2025 to 2030, but current yearly flows are only around $77 billion, leaving a daunting gap of $278 billion per year. Large-scale restoration alone requires nearly $1 billion daily, while private capital currently represents just 6% of global restoration finance.

Fouad candidly acknowledged that "the biggest obstacle today is not a lack of science or solutions, but financing at the scale and speed required." She noted that the difficulty lies not just in raising more funds, but in making land restoration investable and low-risk. "We are striving to build a smoother chain: starting from national strategic priorities, forming concrete projects; leading from projects to investment; and then translating investment into on-the-ground action with measurable results," she explained.

Fouad emphasized that the economic case for restoration is compelling: "Every $1 invested in land restoration can generate $7 to $30 in benefits, including ecosystem services and avoided losses. The task at hand is to convert the wider benefits of healthy land—such as water security, biodiversity, and stable livelihoods—into investment opportunities that financial institutions are willing to support."

Leveraging Public Funds to Unlock Private and Institutional Capital

Public finance alone cannot bridge the funding chasm, Fouad asserted. It must be used strategically to de-risk projects and catalyze private and institutional investment. "Blended finance, guarantees, and other risk-sharing instruments can enhance the bankability of restoration projects, making them easier to finance and attracting large-scale investment. Public and concessional funds can act as a catalyst, absorbing early-stage risks so that larger pools of capital dare to follow," she stated. Additionally, policies, subsidies, and incentives need to be realigned to favor sustainable land management and drought resilience.

Fouad pointed out that restoration efforts require a robust pipeline of investable projects, underpinned by predictable policies, reliable data, and credible monitoring. The Rangelands Flagship Initiative serves as a prime example, starting with an ambition exceeding $1 billion and focusing on developing investment-ready rangeland projects. To date, it has aggregated 45 concrete projects valued at around $1.2 billion. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has supported the initiative's coordination with a $3.3 million investment in a COP17 legacy project.

The same logic applies to drought resilience. Through mechanisms like the Drought Resilience Investment Facility, catalytic and concessional capital can lower risks and channel private investment into prevention before drought escalates into a crisis. Co-launched by UNCCD and the Luxembourg government, the facility aims to mobilize approximately $400 million for sustainable agriculture, water access, and nature-based solutions.

"The private sector has its own economic calculus," Fouad remarked. "Land degradation and drought directly threaten supply chains, raw materials, water sources, and business continuity." Through the Business4Land initiative, UNCCD is working to integrate land and drought issues into corporate strategy, investment, and reporting, elevating restoration from a niche environmental concern to a mainstream investment consideration. During COP17, UNCCD signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mongolian Business Council to formally establish the Business4Land Mongolia Hub.

"Policy provides direction, finance provides the means, partnerships provide capacity, and private-sector engagement helps us scale up," Fouad said. "These are not isolated elements—together, they form an emerging architecture for implementation."

Combating Sand and Dust Storms: Source Control as the Fundamental Solution

Sand and dust storms are a transboundary challenge affecting over 150 countries, with impacts extending far beyond source areas to harm human health, disrupt agriculture, transport, and infrastructure, and destabilize economies and livelihoods. Fouad stressed that these storms are not just an environmental issue but also a development, health, and economic one. She also noted that dust is a natural and essential part of the Earth system, transporting nutrients across continents and oceans—for instance, Saharan dust carries phosphorus across the Atlantic to nourish the Amazon rainforest.

"Our goal is not to eliminate dust, but to reduce the risks and damaging impacts of severe sand and dust storms, particularly those exacerbated by land degradation and unsustainable land and water management," Fouad explained. This underscores the importance of ecosystem-based source control: "Restoring degraded land, protecting soils and vegetation, improving land and water management practices, and strengthening ecosystem resilience to drought and wind erosion all help reduce dust emissions at the source. These measures also yield additional benefits: conserving biodiversity, ensuring food and water security, and improving livelihoods."

Monitoring and early warning systems are essential, but they must translate into prevention and field-level action. "More precise data helps us identify degradation and dust-source areas, improve forecasting accuracy, and reveal where restoration, sustainable management, and drought preparedness are most urgently needed," she said. Given the cross-border nature of these storms, regional cooperation is vital. Countries need to share monitoring and forecasting information, coordinate early-warning systems, and strengthen scientific and technical collaboration. "Regional action can link land restoration, monitoring, early warning, and preparedness into a cohesive approach, rather than addressing them in silos," Fouad added.

At the global level, cooperation must convene governments, scientists, international organizations, financial institutions, the private sector, and local communities. The UN Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms provides a key platform for pooling expertise and helping nations bolster prevention, preparedness, and resilience. "No single country or institution can tackle a transboundary risk of this scale alone. The implementation architecture must work across both borders and sectors. The principle is simple: countries have borders, but ecosystems do not. Mitigating sand and dust storm risks requires action on vulnerable land at the source, combined with cross-border cooperation to anticipate risks and act before crises erupt."

Defining Success at COP17: From Commitments to Measurable Outcomes

COP17 convenes at a pivotal moment, as countries have already committed to restoring 1 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030. The current challenge is transforming these pledges into swift, large-scale action. In her opening remarks, Fouad repeatedly stressed that "COP17 must be a COP of implementation." As high-level sessions progress, she noted, "we increasingly need to answer: how do we create the conditions that make implementation possible?"

For Fouad, the key indicator of success is whether COP17 creates an environment where more finance flows, more projects become investable, and proven solutions are scaled up, all while ensuring investments reach the countries and communities managing the land. "This means connecting all the pieces: enabling policies, country-led project pipelines, science and data, public and concessional finance, private capital, partnerships, and the people who ultimately deliver restoration on the ground," she elaborated.

Over time, these outcomes must be quantified: how many hectares restored, how much healthier soils and rangelands have become, how much drought resilience has strengthened, and how many communities have stabilized. "Success cannot be measured only by the resolutions passed in Ulaanbaatar, but by whether those resolutions bring about tangible change on the ground," Fouad affirmed.

She also emphasized that a successful COP17 should accelerate the transition from reactive emergency response to proactive preparedness, prevention, and anticipatory action. Investing before drought strikes protects livelihoods, food production, and economies, while avoiding the far higher costs of post-crisis relief. "A drought plan on paper cannot protect farmers, pastoralists, or economies—only implementation can," she said.

Rangelands serve as another barometer for COP17's success. Covering 54% of the Earth's land surface and supporting about 2 billion people, including 500 million pastoralists, up to half of these lands are degraded or at risk. COP17 should help push rangelands from mere recognition toward real investment and concrete action. "This shift is becoming more tangible as rangelands move from political declarations to project pipelines, financing, and partnership building," Fouad noted.

If forced to pick a single concrete outcome as a measure of success, Fouad stated: "I would most like to see a more practical implementation pathway for the commitments countries have already made—connecting policy, investable projects, catalytic finance, and partnerships so that field-level action can accelerate and scale up. Not another new institution or an added layer of process, but connecting what we already have and making it work in synergy."

Only then can the COP17 theme, "Restoring Land, Restoring Hope," transcend rhetoric. Rather than piling on new pledges, the goal is to turn existing ambition into outcomes that people and landscapes can feel. "This is what I mean by an architecture for implementation—not another institution or process layer, but connecting existing pieces to work together at scale. That would demonstrate what 'Restoring Land, Restoring Hope' means in practice: transforming ambition into measurable results for people and landscapes," Fouad concluded.