UN Scribe Urges Urgent Action on Desertification

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an urgent action to protect and restore the world’s degrading land in a bid to reduce forced migration, improve food security and address the global climate change emergency.

Guterres made the call in his message to the 2019 World Day to Combat Desertification and the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on Monday in Ankara, Turkey.

The UN scribe who noted that the world was losing 24 billion tons of fertile soil and dry land to degradation, added that this had reduced national domestic product in developing countries by up to eight per cent annually.

Guterres also said that much remained to be done.

According to the UN scribe, the imperative of combating desertification is part of efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The

reported that the international community adopted the Convention to Combat Desertification in Paris on June 17, 1994 out of concerns that “desertification and drought are problems of global dimension affecting all regions.”

also reports that in 2015, the international community also agreed to pursue a global target to ensure all countries work toward keeping a healthy balance of productive land by accelerating the recovery of lands that had been degraded , while avoiding and reducing land degradation.

Also, Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of UNCCD, said that the world’s only agreement should be binding on countries to tackle land degradation, desertification and to mitigate the effects of drought.