The G20, or Group of Twenty, is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies. It comprises 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Russian Federation, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States of America), and the European Union. Collectively, the G20 accounts for 85% of global GDP, two-thirds of the world population and make up about half of the earth’s total land area.
The objectives of this Global Initiative is to prevent, halt and reverse land degradation with an ambition to reduce degraded land by 50 percent by 2040.
Conserving land and halting habitat loss, fragmentation and land degradation, notably through sharing knowledge and best practices on conservation incentives and implementation of other policies and best practices to enhance land conservation and reduce land degradation.
Promoting integrated, sustainable, and resilient land and landscape management through: nature-based solutions or ecosystem-based approaches, as well as supporting sustainable land and water management policies and sustainable agricultural practices, including traditional practices, in order to maintain and enhance ecosystem functionality.
Restoring degraded land through sustainable and locally or regionally appropriate reforestation, afforestation, natural regeneration/revegetation, restoration of ecosystem services, sustainable agricultural practices, and deployment of nature-based solutions or ecosystem-based approaches for biodiversity conservation, among others, in order to restore ecosystem functionality in a landscape context.
The initiative will establish a website that will serve as an information sharing hub to provide easier access to information on land degradation, conservation, sustainable management, and restoration and foster collaboration and broader engagement of various stakeholders in land conservation and restoration efforts.
The Initiative will engage the private sector to encourage it to support land restoration efforts and adopt sustainable land management practices. Similarly, with strong calls from society for urgent environmental action, the Initiative will encourage direct engagement of civil society, including by mobilizing the general public.
The initiative will support the exchange of know-how and capacity building between G20 members, non-member countries, and other partners and additional stakeholders, as well as support efforts to accelerate exchange of best practices to enhance land conservation and restoration efforts.
In November 2020, during the G20 Saudi Presidency, at the Riyadh Heads of State Summit, the Global Initiative on Reducing Land Degradation and Enhancing Conservation of Terrestrial Habitats was launched.
The Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen AlFadley, and the UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw signing the Cooperation Agreement to implement the initiative.
The initiative will be implemented through the Initiative Coordination Office (ICO) under oversight of the United Nations Secretariat to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The ICO will have dedicated full-time staff and an annual budget from which it will fund its core activities. The ICO will receive administrative and financial oversight from the UNCCD Secretariat.
Initiative Steering committee consisting of all interested G20 members, the Secretariats of the UNCCD, FAO, UNEP, as well as non-member countries and other institutions that contribute to the work of the ICO will provide strategic direction to the ICO.
A detailed strategy and workplan for the implementation of the Global Initiative have been developed.
Experts from G20 Global Land Initiative Coordination office visit the Rhenish mining area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany to study Recultivation of Hambuch open cast mine
Dr Muralee Thummarukudy
Director, G20 Global Initiative Coordination Office
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1
The year 2024 was pivotal for the Global Land Initiative. Land degradation and restoration remained prominent on the global policy agenda throughout.
The UN Environmental Assembly, G7 Leaders’ Summit, G20 Environment and Climate Change Ministers’ meeting, and BRICS Leaders’ Summit addressed land degradation and committed to scaling up land restoration efforts.
The European Union passed a new Restoration Law mandating quantitative targets for land restoration. The UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD Conferences of the Parties (COPs), held during the last quarter of the year, reinforced land restoration as a crucial solution to combat land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
Building on this favorable policy momentum, the Global Land Initiative continued to develop and deliver a robust program. In collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), we completed a database on Global Restoration Commitments by countries under the UNCCD, UNCBD, UNFCCC and the Bonn Challenge.
Representing a significant increase in global commitments since 2021, the total global commitment now stands at 1.2 billion hectares, with 30 countries, including 11 G20 members, pledging to restore over 10 million hectares each.
The UNCCD, with financial support from the Global Land Initiative, published the first global restoration economy international report, titled, Investing in Land’s Future: Financial needs assessment for UNCCD. The report defines the private sector’s growing role in land restoration and its potential for creating green jobs.
The study outlines key recommendations to support the growth of the restoration economy, which has an associated market survey valued at $37 billion globally, growing at 8.2% annually and is projected to reach $70 billion by 2031. Together, these studies stressed the need for focused policy action to encourage private sector investment and engagement in the restoration economy.
Working with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Global Land Initiative launched the first cohort of the “Global Ecopreneurs Program,” training 100 young entrepreneurs from restoration startups. These entrepreneurs received training on improving business plans and pitching to investors. We plan to scale this program regionally to reach 10,000 ecopreneurs by 2029.
Training remained a cornerstone of the Global Land Initiative, with programs on the restoration of mining areas, of urban lands, of lowland-based systems, of drylands and with biosaline agriculture. These trainings consistently attracted more applications than available slots. To accommodate this high demand and broader participation, we also conducted online webinars on these topics, in English, Arabic and French.
The first University Curriculum Course on Sustainable Agriculture for Land Restoration was launched this year. It reached over 400 university teachers, with over 100 trained on implementing the curriculum. A university module on urban land restoration is in its final stages.
Representatives from 25 countries attended the second Global Changemaker Academy for Parliamentarians held in Bonn. With the European Union Restoration Law’s passage, global best practices can now be discussed and adapted to national contexts.
The Global Land Initiative’s visibility surged with participation in the G20 Environment and Climate Change Working Group meetings in Brazil, the COPs of the UNCBD and UNCCD and 7 other international exhibitions. In December, the Initiative, in partnership with Germany’s Federal Museum of Arts and Sciences, opened the Save Land: United for Land Museum Exhibition, the first museum exhibition on land restoration, which will run until June 2025.
Online engagement grew, reaching over 35,000 newsletter subscribers and over 14,000 followers across social media platforms, and a global reach of nearly 400,000. The Global Photography Festival, which attracted 17,000 entries from 154 countries, further boosted visibility.
The Global Restoration Information Hub was launched in July 2024. It is a compilation of globally available data on land restoration from credible sources. The site provides information on global best practices, restoration commitments, best practice legislations, documentaries, restoration actors and other databases.
The Initiative issued a global call for communities and NGOs to submit their restoration projects for small grant support, receiving over 600 submissions from 100 countries. Forty-one projects from XX countries were selected for funding.
[Statement on faith, if the faith report is finalized]
The G20 Global Land Initiative Steering Committee was kept informed of developments through regular communication. It met in July and continues to provide guidance on program implementation. It received the work plan for 2025-26; an exciting period of action is ahead.
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