No climate transition without securing land rights

THE 2019 landmark land tenure decision by parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) offers a blueprint for upcoming climate negotiations in Sharm El Sheikh in November.

The recent UNCCD COP15 conference in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, took necessary next steps to guide countries on how to embed land rights within national implementation
processes.

As the first of the three Rio Conventions (addressing climate, biodiversity and desertification respectively) to explicitly refer to land tenure as a critical enabler for the transition to more sustainable pathways, results of the meeting could advance the landmark land tenure decision by proposing guidelines to safeguard legitimate land rights.

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