High-Level Ministerial event on Security and Migration - UNCCD COP17

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us today, and I apologize for our late start. Your Excellencies, distinguished delegates, partners and colleagues, welcome. My name is Janelle Galvanic. I'm the head of the department regional peace support at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin, Germany. And I have the great honor today to facilitate this high level ministerial event on security and migration. As you all know, land degradation, desertification and drought can no longer be considered solely as environmental challenges. Instead, it is being increasingly recognized that they also exacerbate existing social, political, and security pressures. So I find it very fitting that a representative of an organization like the Berakal Foundation, a peacemaking and peacebuilding organization that works with local and national peacebuilders worldwide, was asked to facilitate this session. It emphasizes that in order to tackle these challenges, We need a coordinated and cohesive response across various portfolios and various levels, particularly in fragile and conflict affected settings. So again, thank you for joining us today as we highlight positive experiences, discuss innovative financing mechanisms, build a shared political narrative across portfolios, and reframe land restoration and drought resilience as a strategic instrument for prevention, resilience and stability. Lastly, as we move through the sessions this afternoon, I would kindly ask the country delegates to respect the three-minute time limit on your contributions so that we can ensure that everyone has the space to be heard. And with that, I would like to turn over to our first speaker of the day for the opening remarks, His Excellency Mr. Enkhbayar Butamur, Member of Parliament, Minister of Mongolia, and Chief of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of Mongolia. You have the floor.

Your Excellency, I'm Ms. Yasmin Faour.

The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Your Excellency, Mrs. Amina Mohamed, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, honorable ministers of environment and distinguished guests and delegates, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the government of Mongolia, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to open this high-level ministerial event on security and migration and deliver these remarks. Land degradation and desertification are no longer merely environmental issues. They evolved into a complex social, political, and security challenges. By disrupting ecosystem integrity and undermining livelihoods, land degradation heightens risks associated with food security, forced migration, competition over natural resources, and social political instability. Nearly 40% of humanity, approximately 3.2 billion people, live in areas affected by land degradation and up to 40 percent of world's land surfaces degraded illustrating the immense scale of this global challenge climate change land degradation desertification directly wrote the quality of life and shape migration decisions simultaneously intensifying competition over scarce natural resources such as water arable land and pasture lands demand that we address these matters through comprehensive security alliance. Today there are roughly 304 million international migrants and over 74 million internally displaced persons worldwide. Migration must therefore be viewed not simply as a post crisis consequence but rather addressed proactively through preventive policies that tackle its roots, root causes, namely environmental degradation, livelihood loss and economic vulnerability. As a country deeply affected by desertification, land degradation and climate change, Mongolia recognizes that environmental challenges extend far beyond ecology. They present direct risk factors, impact the national and regional food security, resilience and population movement. For millennia, Mongolia has maintained a pastoral nomadic way of life, living in harmony with nature. In recent decades, however, the severe water scarcity and rapid desertification have left 77% of Mongolia's land area affected by degradation. This adversely impacts livelihoods and accelerates rural to urban migration, concentrating 70% of our population in urban centers. To mitigate this ecological impact and alleviate the socioeconomic pressure on our citizens, the government of Mongolia is implementing decisive national policies. Under 1 billion tree national campaign initiated by the president of Mongolia, we are advancing long-term ecosystem restoration, protecting soil, water, and biodiversity. and mitigating climate change impacts. Furthermore, under the government's national initiative called the Liberation and its vital component, the Green Liberation Policy, we have enacted the Mongolia's primary law on climate change, accelerated the green energy transition and fostered new era of environmental conservation and restoration driven by active public, private and local participation. high-level ministerial event aims to treat the land restoration and combating desertification not merely as a sector of environmental concern, but rather as a strategic priority spanning politics, governance, finance, and security. Our objective is to strengthen international cooperation, enhance cross-sectoral policy coherence, and mobilize high-level political will. We must globally acknowledge the nexus between land degradation, security, and migration to advance international dialogue, land restoration and climate resilience require robust financing, adequate infrastructure, strategic investment. Building a shared political consensus among nations and providing effective decision-making support within the framework of the UNCCD is critical. Moreover, drawing upon the UNCCD Peace Forest Initiative and relevant regional and international endeavors, we will explore practical national, regional, transboundary initiatives. Our discussions will focus on innovative financing mechanisms and collaborative frameworks that span climate, soil, water, environmental and humanitarian and security sectors to foster lasting peace and sustainable development. I am confident that today's forum will serve as a vital platform for advancing these imperative solutions. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much, Minister. And now I would like to turn the word to Ms. Yasmeen Fouad, the UN, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Over to you.

Thank you very much. And thanks for all who has been interested to attend that high-level ministerial on security and migration. Your Excellency, the State Secretary, as a representative for our host country, the government of Mongolia, excellencies, ministers at the panel as well. I'd like to highlight three important points and why we are convening this high level ministerial event on security and migration. Land degradation and drought are not only environmental challenges, they are risk multiplier that does really affect the peace and stability. They undermine livelihood and increase the pressure on food and water system. This is not only the case, but also when there is inequality, weak governance, and a very fragile country, these pressures can fuel up with more tension, insecurity, and displacement. There are evidence that shows that 40% of the conflicts within countries over the past 60 years have been associated with the natural resources, particularly land and water. And in 2024, 673 million people faced hunger and nearly 70% of the people experienced acute food insecurity. By mid-2024, around 90 million of the world 123 million forcibly displaced people were living in countries that highly exposed to climate crisis. But this chain risk can be interrupted. How? Let's restore land and mitigate the impact on drought. Restoring lands strengthen food and water security, livelihood and resilience. Let's be inclusive so everyone would be around the table and build cooperation. trust and social cohesion. And let's upscale the finance and here not in form of an aid, but in a form of investment where we can reduce pressure and contribute to people staying in their homeland. I'd like to give an example of that. The Peace Forest Initiative is a very logical One related to sustainable land management, giving very practical entry points for what's called the country led and transboundary cooperation, a dialogue and a trust building. I can assume that this is very much similar to how we're moving, hoping that we will gavel the drought from COP16 to COP17, how we are building the trust, getting in a constructive dialogue and accepting the differences of views between one another. It's the same when relating security and migration to land degradation and drought. We need to find that open safe space to discuss among one another. And the three priorities for action, treat land, restoration and drought resilience as infrastructure. Put them at the front in order to prevent the conflict and build resilience community. Break down the institutional silos. And for that, we need to have in this discussion not the ministers of environment on agriculture. I'm not saying they're not relevant. They're relevant, but the much more relevant are the foreign affairs, interior, migration, and finance ministers. Unless we start speaking with that narrative within a different forum, we will keep speaking to ourself in the same room a year after the other and make finance fit for a fragile setting. We cannot say because there is conflict in this country, there is a very low credit, we cannot invest. We're not doing any good and we're not moving the needle when we speak that because that was the discussion of 10 years ago and what happened after that, more conflicts is happening around the world. So finance must be flexible and take risk and be informed and give the chance for the investment and for the guarantee and for the market to stabilize. This is what I learned 20 years ago. That's the role of the development banks. That's the role of the UN and not the other way around on how the revenues could be taken. My closing message would be if we pay for restoration today, or we will have to pay more to deal with the crisis tomorrow because simply crisis is always more expensive. Let us together think deeply from this high level ministerial dialogue and we will take that over. How can we restore land and restore hope and bring stability back to the communities? Thank you.

Thank you very much for those direct and passionate words on this very important topic. I would now like to turn over to our first session of the day, a high-level panel discussion, and I will directly move to the moderator for the session, Ms. Valerie Hickey, Global Director for Environment at the World Bank. Over to you.

Thank you very much, Janelle, and good afternoon, everybody. And we couldn't have said it better. Those of us sitting here, I think, are well aware of how much drought, desertification, and land degradation is not just an environmental issue. And it's been wonderful to see in this year of rangelands how much the conversation outside of negotiations and inside negotiations has focused not just on the environmental consequences, but on the consequences for those socioeconomic systems, for those livelihoods that the family who call those lands home has been. And that's why we're so proud to be part of this discussion today because it is not just about the economy either. It is about security, it is about migration. But we all know that unfortunately, the international governance systems, financial institutions are set up to respond to crises, particularly in the security and the migration fields, rather than to invest in prevention. And that's why I'm so proud to be joined by a wonderful panel today, some of whom are running late, but they will join us. So let me introduce the two who will join us as they finish up. As always in a COP, people are running late. We're going to be joined by His Excellency, Mr. Carlos Alvarado Quejeda, who's the former president of Costa Rica. We're also going to be joined by Her Excellency Ms. Tarja Halonen, the former president of the Republic of Finland. But I'm very proud to already be sitting together with Ms. Inger Anderson, the executive director for the United Nations Environment Program. Next to the executive director is His Excellency Mr. Moses Villacatte, who's the commissioner for agriculture, rural development, blue economy, and sustainable environment at the Africa Union Commission. And then next to both of us is Director General Philip Nugent, who's the director general for the European Union International and Marine Affairs at the Department of Climate, Energy, and the Environment in Ireland. Executive Director Anderson, if I could start with you. Of course, we just heard from your colleague, Dr. Fouad, that it is expensive to respond to crises, and we routinely calculate how much we need to spend in response, but not how much we need to spend in anticipation to prevent these crises from happening. What needs to change?

Here we go. This is what, yes. So, I mean, one of the uncomfortable realities is that we spend a lot of time looking at how much the crisis will cost and mobilizing money around the crisis, which of course is important, but that needs to be weighed up against the reality of what does prevention actually cost and what does prevention save? And it's that dichotomy that is an uncomfortable truth because we don't actually spend enough time on looking at what the real returns, yes, some will be cost from those investments, but the returns are many fold, as we just heard from Dr. Fouad. And so that's one of the things. And in addition to this, if you like, we tackle the issue around these crises separately. There's a humanitarian story, there's the agriculture story, there's the development story, there's the environment story, and each of these stories are told separately, and that's very expensive. If each ministry is doing its own account and spending its own time figuring out what's what, and of course, then, you know, we don't bring it together properly, and so the investments are dispersed into little projects rather than into this comprehensive, here is what it take to make that landscape approach, and here is what we need to do. And we understand very well that the cost of this crisis, the value of prevention is so much cheaper. And there is, I think it's International Federation of the Red Cross that did some interesting calculations speaking about if we are, I mean, we could be looking at a climate related crisis around 20 billion annually by 2030 and 200 million people needing aid by 2050. So these are real issues. Now, which ministry takes on what, in what form and when. What would it take? Well, first we need to avoid, make these avoided costs visible. Make these prevention costs very clear. Ensure that we understand that land degradation, droughts, desertification, it has a price. And that price is not, it's massive in monetary terms and in human terms. and is preventable to a large degree by sound management. And secondly, of course, we need to, as we think about all the other investments, we invest in roads and in hospitals and education, investing in rangelands and investing in prevention is part and parcel of the thing we need to do so that society functions. It's just another dimension of what responsible governments need to do. And it is not something that we address by a project by project approach. I'll stop here because you have a number of other speakers. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam Executive Director. And this idea of exactly making visible that investments at the nature, land and water nexus are investments in infrastructure and they're investments in allowing people to stay at home because most people want to stay at home. And Commissioner Vilakati, I think across Africa, families have wanted to stay at home and yet have been forced to migrate, have been at the forefront of suffering the impacts including the insecurity impacts of drought, desertification and land degradation, what would it look like if restoration and drought resilience were viewed across Africa?

I think we need to start thinking about financing of restoration, or restoration finance, the way in which we finance other infrastructures. like roads, power, through predictable multi-layer budget, which is embedded in the national development plans, not a once-off environmental grant that is cut whenever the budgets are tightened. Because I think that is where the missing link is. We just take it as a once-off that we can actually just do the financing once there has been that calamity. The other issue is the issue of fragmented efforts. If you look at the Great Green Wall initiative across Africa, they all lie around active displacement corridors. Restoration and stabilization actors therefore must plan together in the same rooms, not on parallel tracks, because you find that There are those who are planning on this, those are planning this, and it becomes bits and pieces. And yet if we come as a collective, that would ensure that, for example, the Great Green Wall can be able to be an answer on the restoration at a greater impact. The other area is obviously because this affects areas like agriculture. the African Union heads of states were able to endorse the Kampala Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program and this declaration of 2025, which stretches all the way to 2035. Now, that is looking at the implementation of activities that can change agriculture from a restoration perspective. Now, if we were to invest or respond to land restoration based on that, there would be drought resilience, which is key to this comprehensive African agricultural development. It would also be looking at other areas where the soil health is looked into differently to make sure that we do not degrade it even further. For example, under the Qatar program, it commits to at least 30% of agricultural land under sustainable management and to protect 40% of household from shocks by 2035. Now, so it is saying, let us invest ahead of the crisis because if we can do that, then there will be land restoration. I think the other one is the, if we look at the, particularly the Great Green Wall initiative, the investment that has already been done in some of these member states, it is there to be seen. It is changing the terrain. It is changing those areas. Land is being restored. The desertification, which is a challenge, it's narrowing in a way, even though it is escalating in other areas, which means instead of looking at what we have, now we need to get into the other areas. So the Great Green Wall is one aspect of investment. that if, for example, we were to look at it, it can address restoration, drought resilience upfront and release the pressure that drives cross-border movement. I think, for example, we've been forewarned that there's going to be El Nino. So I think part of this would help us to plan ahead so that if and when it attacks us, then we should be having the remedies at hand. Let me just end there for now. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Commissioner. And I think you bring up one of the key enabling conditions to moving from a world where we simply respond to a world where we can prevent, and that is political will and political will at the highest level of government across ministries. and making sure that political will is twinned with clear measurable performance indicators, as you mentioned. I think we've seen that happen across the Great Green Wall in the Sahelian region and beyond. But moving from Africa to Ireland, Director General Nugent, how do you think governments need to move to deliver environmental gains when they invest to combat drought, desertification, and land degradation that also deliver for jobs, for social cohesion, and for stability at the same time.

Thank you, Valerie. And it's a pleasure to be here today with such a distinguished panel. I really appreciate the opportunity to contribute. I think it's important just to frame the discussion to say that as far as we're concerned, climate change and environmental degradation are multipliers and they exacerbate existing vulnerabilities, fragilities and instabilities. The point was made earlier about the importance of investment now. The best time to invest would have been decades ago, but the second best time to invest is now. We do need to be considering drought in the security context and in all the other contexts that were mentioned earlier. I think that the Irish experience is instructive, and anyone who knows anything about Irish history will know that we have a long history of migration, and we're acutely aware that migration is shaped by multiple and very often interlinked drivers. Through Ireland's development cooperation, climate action and peacebuilding work over many decades, we've also seen the value of approaches that address these things in a coherent way, so addressing social, environmental and economic vulnerabilities together. Land restoration and sustainable land management therefore need to be seen not just as environmental interventions, but investments in sustainable development more generally, in peace, in wider social and economic dividends. And this means then that there's a need to design interventions around the needs and priorities of the communities from the outset. It means considering the impacts on livelihoods, the resilience alongside environmental outcomes, and then taking account of local conflict and climate dynamics so that we can ensure that communities can see tangible benefits as early as possible from investments in land and water. Sustainable natural resource management also provides politically neutral entry points for dialogue, we believe, and for cooperation and peace building. Shared interests in land and water shouldn't be politically controversial. They should be about creating practical opportunities that can build trust between communities and across borders. And in that context, we're working hard with partners in Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region to support cooperation in the management of shared resources and across borders. For example, in southeast Senegal, we're working alongside local communities and local authorities to support cooperation on transboundary water management. In Syria, we're supporting the Syrian people as they return to their homes after years of conflict, applying a climate and conflict sensitive lens to reintegration and recovery. And we think that these experiences reinforce a really important lesson, and that is that environmental cooperation can help create space for dialogue, it can help strengthen social cohesion while also delivering really practical benefits for communities and households because it's critically important that we show those practical benefits as early as possible. It can't just be about environmental outcomes that may deliver in 10 years time, it needs to be impacting on people in a material way as quickly as possible. I'll leave it there, thank you.

Here we go. Forgive us, we were having some IT issues. I think it's so important to remind all of us that when we're talking about these issues, we're talking about real people who are living with with the results of institutions and investments that aren't set up to help them when they need it, but rather to try and help them fix things after they're broken, which is always more expensive. We've heard it from our team. But I think the other thing, Director General, that you reminded us of, and it reflects what the Commissioner was saying about the Great Green Wall, that things also can't be done just in one country and one community. There are real transboundary opportunities. Particularly when 60% of freshwater, for example, is transboundary. So fragmentation is not just across institutions, it's also across geographies, and we need to look at that. But Executive Director Anderson, I want us to move away from just setting the problem, which I think we've been very good at, and we've named some of these issues, fragmentation particularly, to really thinking about the solutions. And there's nobody better on this panel because you've been at the heart of the international architecture for a long time, whether at the World Bank, whether at IUCN, and now at UNEP in leadership positions, what needs to change specifically so that we can move beyond this fragmentation?

I think Commissioner nailed it because it begins with political leadership. And when you have political leadership, then doors open up. And that political leadership has to translate then into an understanding that this It has a temporal dimension that is longer than what most people would like, because we are very short term thinkers and we like to solve the problem within a couple of years within a political term, etc. But just think a tree grows, it takes 20 years. And so that temporal dimension is one and the spatial dimension is another. The Great Green Wall being such example, you know, can we think about the range? Can we think about the river basin? It's those kind of dimensions that we can't afford to ignore. Geography matters and matters greatly. And unfortunately, because we are international organization, makes up, made-up of states, and so we think very about boundaries and so on and dealing with states. But the beauty of having regional organizations like the UN, like the African Union and so on, is precisely that you can talk regional. Many of the instruments don't quite work yet. World Bank cannot so easily lend in a obviously regional manner. But there are ways that even the World Bank has set up to do sort of serial lending across borders to support something that has regional dimensions. We need to get better at that. We also need to talk about these mandates that each agency and entity has. Mr. President, it's a pleasure to -- No, we were at the same lunch. Mr. President could not leave. I slipped away. I was lesser importance than he. But nevertheless, we had these mandates that are sort of a box that we have been boxed into. But these mandates are just about our own imagination, in a sense. And as we will all know, the intersectionality between understanding prevention, understanding water, understanding rangelands, understanding economic infrastructure, understanding resilience. All of this comes together. There is a dimension that is difficult that we need to talk about, and that is, of course, land tenure and security of land and also female land tenure, which is an issue that is often overlooked. Now, we understand communal land assets, and this is certainly something in Africa that exists, but we also have to understand the security of that asset and who owns it, how does it get inherited, who has the rights, who has the paper, and who certifies those rights. And this can be traditional authority or it can be modern authority, but it is a dimension because it's often against land that you can borrow, and then when you borrow, you can have that as security, but if you don't have the land. And so there is that issue which as time becomes sensitive to talk about, but seeing that many countries actually do have rights and parcels, the issue around inheritance becomes important. And finally, I would say that as we speak about the economics and as we understand that out of drought and land degradation often comes a conflictual situation over resources, and that can become scaled up and full-blown war. It can be between one community and another community over a particular water resources. This has enormous costs. And so back to the first point, if we do not understand the sort of the costs that this will have in the long term, we're frankly being very short-sighted. We have to have that systems level change and I challenge us to think about the temporal and the spatial, which becomes absolutely critical if we are to secure land. As someone who was there when we began the negotiations for this convention back in 1992, as you know, it was only agreed in 1994, and I worked for six, seven years in the precursor to this convention in the eighties, so this dates me. But the reality here is that The same conversations we are having today echo the conversations that we had yesteryear. And so the kind of work under the Great Green Wall, these are the deal makers and the deal changers and the game changers. And so we need to see more of that with the kind of leadership that we have from the AU and others. across regions because it is there, but then the rest of us, including the World Bank, have to line up behind the AU, behind these initiatives so that they can succeed. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Executive Director. And President Alvarado, I'm going to put to you the challenge that the Executive Director put to all of us, which is how do we move to systems thinking. As president, you sat over an entire cabinet, and these issues were not just a matter of environment for you. Can you tell us some of how Costa Rica managed to make this a whole of government, whole of society integrated approach?

Thank you. Well, that's quite the question. Let me answer with the benefit of being a former head of state. So one can be more, I don't know, one can take more risks. Several things that I will say. One, looking back to my country, but globally, I would suggest us to let go of the fiction of control. I think we live on the fiction that we do control lots of things. For example, we want to control the finance from the top to bottom. We want to control the amounts, we want to control the goals. And what I'm seeing more often, it's lots of planning, exercise to mobilize resource, but on the communities, I'm not necessarily seeing the impact we need or the velocity we need to do that. And I think that's associated with this notion of control. If we think about the language we use, We even, I'll just mention the design of top bottom. My ambition now is that we need to shift that mindset. Instead of thinking of a multilateral global system that has the finance countries that are part of the system and communities and regions that are on the bottom, I think we need to put that more horizontally. We are all on the same team. But if we flip that pyramid and put it horizontally, it's not about trickling down resources with plans and guidelines so other execute. From that perspective, it's about empowering. It's about enabling communities. It's about allowing the traditional knowledge, the practices, and the local science, and the local adaptation to do what they have to do. But that also means to let go of the fiction of control. We need to trust. Trust is a very intangible word. How we measure trust? Are the financial institutions, the ones that have the mobilized capital willing to trust on the local to deliver the finance needed for land restoration, for water protection, for adaptation plans, for the right to stay, for safeguarding either to prevent migration or to make it in a humane way. Are we willing to let go of that fiction of control? So we trust more locally that the solutions can be implemented. So we can let go of some of the conditionalities and trust that people and communities will be doing what is most important for them and for their future. I think that is a shift of paradigm that has nothing to do but with things that are inside our heads. Think about climate. Do we control climate? Can we control if it's going to rain or not or what's going to happen? We can plan for it, but we don't control that. So how can we control all the outcomes? Think about startups. Why is it that people invest in startups and take risk? Because the outcome is unknown. But on the other hand, we want to force communities to a known outcome of something that we have not planned for. It's not their fault what's going on. So this is a big paradigm. But then, so how does this work? Well, you put trust in the forefront. You give more, you study more. And by the way, another fiction I believe we need to let go is the notion of scaling up. Because we want to scale up, it's necessary, because we need to advance against climate change with land restoration and other things. But scaling up has implicitly the idea that we all have to do basically the same to scale up a solution. Are all communities the same? Scaling up without taking into account local agency is basically destroying that local agency. So scaling up should be on a matter of objectives, not on a matter of methods, and let it go on the fiction of control is allowing the resource to flow to those that need it the most, trusting, and yes, this sounds very idealistic, but where we are now, we're not going anywhere, to be frank. Trusting that people with the resources are going to do the best, or at least are going to learn into how to adapt, with land restoration, climate change, and migration. So maybe my five cents of advice would be that if I were to change four things in a cabinet, I will be thinking more of enabling people than in controlling them and allowing the resource to get to them so we can trust that they will be doing the best in their interest.

Thank you so much, President Alvarado, and it's worth much more than five cents, I can tell you that. And I think we would all agree that success moves at the speed of trust, and that trust is built on inclusion and empowerment. And President Helenon, I want to turn to you. Executive Director Anderson mentioned to us in one of her points the issue of land tenure, and we all know that There's over 200 countries in this world and fewer than one third of them, in fewer than one third of them, do women have the right to own land in law and in practice. You've been a champion for human rights, for gender for a long time. How do you build that trust?

So yeah, people want to have a safe life as much as possible. And of course, people are men and women. young and old. And that's, I think, that healthy land is an essential part of the infrastructure also for humanity and human society. So in that way, of course, we cannot start from the good beginning always, but then the restoration land must be understood as environmental and social process. And And of course, its contribution to peace and the stability of the society is not automatic. The results depend also that whether the people, and people are always local. I mean, we all live somewhere. And so they should be genuinely involved whether land resource rights are respected and whether the benefits are also shared fairly. So we have to respect their rights, their needs, and then the benefits. And what we have noticed in UNCCD when we made this project here, so that in many countries, the most of the UN member countries, the women's rights also to have all the land property and to be farmers. So it's correct in a way, but in practical level, it's not quite that. And that's why the project we have had here and has shown that sometimes not in so terribly big changes in national law or the court system or the governance more broadly can give a very, very good results. But I would say that it needs a little bit work more that people will understand that like on the roads, so water systems or energy networks support societies. We need also to recognize that productive land and functioning ecosystems support food security, livelihood, health and human dignity, which means safe, better lives. And that's why I think that we should continue now the implementation for instance, here and also study further that in which way, in different ways we can work for the stability. And if the life is good or fairly good where you live. So it means also that it gives more peaceful society. And that means also that people seem to prefer to stand where they are. So they love the local environments, their relatives, their friends and everything what they know already beforehand. And that's why it is very good prevention also for uncontrolled migration, which is not good in both sides. Of course people are born to move, but not that they have to. And so the second point is that always Of course, peace is something like Carlos has explained, something people naturally want to have. But not always is possible that you or your country can decide whether you have a peace or not. It's also the neighbors who can organize against and different thing. But I would say that the society, what we are describing, it's stronger both in peace, but also in the conflict time. And that's why I would say that we should notice more clearly how strong measure the land, sound land, sorry, land is for the good life of the people.

No, thank you so much, Madam President. And I have to say, as an economic migrant myself who had to leave Ireland and leave our family farm because of issues in the 1990s, this issue around allowing people to stay and respecting and building the dignity of the families and letting them make economic decisions where they are is incredibly important. And so, Mr. Commissioner, if I can come to you, These are issues, of course, that resonate across Africa, and the Africa Union has been looking at these issues for a long time. What is the one change? We may not have full control, as President Alvarado says, but we have some control. What is the one policy change you would want to see across Africa in order to help make sure that the enabling conditions are right to build that inclusion, to build the dignity, so if people choose to stay where they are, they can.

That's a mouthful. One change. I think I think the issue of peace is all that we all aspire. And we want to live in peace. And harmony. but because we tend to aggravate things that cause conflict, that cause disharmony, then we destroy the peaceful atmosphere. It could be a result of just water. where there's supposed to be a shared, it's supposed to be shared by various countries, but others will block it so that those who are downstream cannot get it. And that is a source for disaster and a source for conflict. But I think lately, one of the things that I've observed, I will digress a little bit, It is the issue of unemployment, job creation, particularly for the youth. And if we do not address job creation in Africa, migration will continue en masse. How can we address that? I think Africa has all the resources. 60% of arable land is in Africa. The minerals, almost 60 to 70% of the minerals are in Africa. But we tend to be obstructive when it comes to the minerals and not add value so that our people, particularly our youth, can gain employment. If we were to say that let's ensure that every mineral that is harvested, that is mined, there is value addition. That will create that ripple effect. I think the other one obviously is related to education. the the skills base to make sure that I will concentrate mainly on the youth because this migration is a serious one. As you saw about, is it a month or so, when we had some youth from a particular country in Africa rushing to Europe. The ocean was like a canal. They were not afraid of the crocodiles. And I'm sure the crocodiles also ran away because of the multitude. But if you start looking at that, why are they doing that? Why is it happening? Why aren't they afraid of death? But they would be willing to migrate. I think it starts with the job creation as well as the skills base to ensure that we can become competitive. Nowadays, our Western world are already competing on robotics, drones, et cetera. Where is Africa in terms of that to make sure that they can also become competitive? I'll end there.

No, thank you so much, Mr. Commissioner. And it echoes so much the issues around dignity that President Halonen raised because, of course, By 2035, there's gonna be another 450 million Africans entering the labor force. And if there are no jobs, particularly if there are no jobs in those places that they call home in the landscapes and coastal areas where Africa does have some of the most important global resources, then that is when we do see less peace, less security, more migration. And so I think it was an incredibly important point to make. Director General Nugent, I'm gonna give you the last word. And Ireland is currently hosting the presidency of the European Union and has a long history yourself, but across the European Union of working across development, humanitarian, security portfolios. What is the one thing that needs to change in your opinion to make them work better together exactly to create the kind of jobs, to allow people to stay in place, to invest in natural infrastructure, exactly to prevent the type of drought, desertification, land degradation we've seen rather than just respond to it.

Thanks again, no pressure. I think, I suppose one kind of high level response and then I'll provide a bit more detail on it, but I think in Europe at the moment migration is framed as a problem that arises because people want to leave somewhere and in fact what we've heard so eloquently expressed today is that Migration is a problem caused by people not being able to stay where they want to stay. I think a more meaningful, far-reaching, proactive approach to migration is to make people's lives better in the places that they're being forced to leave at the moment. That's a slow burn and it requires a multifaceted approach. If you think about the circumstances, Valerie, which caused you to leave Ireland in the early 1990s, people coming into the workforce a couple of years later didn't have to make that difficult choice that you did. And the reasons that they didn't have to make that wasn't primarily down to education, it was down to economic growth. Now, unfortunately, because of inflation and house price increases, et cetera, et cetera, and various other economic factors in Ireland at the moment, we are seeing young people migrating again in this more recently to Australia and places. But it was around fixing the economic fundamentals and improving people's prospects and giving them jobs to go into at home was the thing that kind of that ceased migration as a sort of a brain drain generational issue. I think though, to think about it in a bit more detail, it's significant that we're having this conversation in a semester of three cops and look, the synergy word has not been. It's not been a universally popular one this week, but it is critical, I think, that we think about it. And we believe strongly, both in Ireland and the EU, in a multilateralist approach to tackling these interconnected challenges about protecting our shared planet, supporting global peace, and delivering stability. And climate development, humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding resources are often looked at through separate lenses, separate portfolios with different mandates, different incentives, different timeframes for planning. The distinctions are important and should be respected, but they should not prevent us from identifying where objectives overlap and where greater coherence can deliver better outcomes. That does not mean creating new structures, because we have plenty of structures to deliver these things already, or merging budgets, but it does mean improving how we work together, sharing analysis, aligning incentives and objectives, coordinating investment and, when appropriate, establishing common outcomes around resilience, livelihoods, social cohesion and stability. We shouldn't be asking what each portfolio can deliver individually, but what they can do collectively, because that's far more powerful. And the UNCCD and its partners have a really important role to play in helping us make those connections to strengthen cooperation across sectors and integrate land restoration. But fundamentally, I think it's a question of reframing the discussion around migration as a problem to do with people who want to leave somewhere, it's actually a problem to do with people not being able to stay where they want to, that I think would be a very powerful shift.

No, thank you so much, DG. And I think that's a great way to end our conversation and to set up the discussion for the ministerial that is coming around the idea, and we've heard from everyone on this panel, families who live in degraded landscapes don't experience climate change on Monday and biodiversity loss on Tuesday and not having access to a job on Wednesday. These are happening in the same geographies at the same time, and so the solutions need to be aligned, they need to be built around social cohesion. And we know there are problems, you heard them, we know fragmentation is an issue, we heard about how many of these issues are actually invisible to decision makers, to ministers of finance, to the private sector, oftentimes to those people in transboundary commissions making exactly those decisions. And even though there is a fiction of control, there is a fiction of one size fitting all. The truth is, I think we also heard a good news story here this afternoon, that there are elements of success that we need to identify. It's all around political will, we heard from the commissioner. It's all about having measurable performance indicators, setting targets that can be measured, that can be transparent. It's about thinking about the long term. as Executive Director Anderson said, across geographies, across time, across institutions, but it is especially around putting in place the enabling conditions to make investments work, whether that's around land tenure, whether it's around jobs, whether it's around the economic fundamentals, as DG Nugent said at the end. But the watchwords again, I think that we heard is to combat this fragmentation, to make sure the families who call these degraded landscapes home get help before things get worse. We need to focus on alignment across ministries, across society, across geographies, and we need to build social cohesion. With that, Madam Galvanek, I'll hand back to you.

Thank you very much to our excellent moderator, Valerie Hickey from the World Bank. And thank you very much to our distinguished panelists. We appreciate your time and your insights and the inspiring discussion and most specifically, the very concrete suggestions for steps to take this agenda forward. It was an excellent panel and thank you again for being with us. For the sake of time, I'm going to turn right now to the ministerial roundtable and that will be moderated by His Excellency Mr. Pierre Halle, Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development of Cameroon. Over to you, Minister Halle.

Thank you very much for giving me the floor, Madam. Your Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to co-chair this round table which is focused on defining the link between land, drought, security and human mobility, all of that nexus. Now, the opening session, I think, throws into stark relief the institutional and global stakes. And it's now our responsibility to make our own modest contribution to the discussion, bringing our national and regional perspectives into play. We need to review and discuss the concrete realities of said nexus between land drought, security and human mobility, identify stumbling blocks to the implementation of responses there too. It is and we will also talk about what governments and partners need to be able to take the necessary action. Now, the flip side of the coin is also true. Well-crafted land restoration initiatives can protect livelihoods and subsistence means, can consolidate food security, can reduce vulnerabilities of local communities and their exposure to potential forced displacement, and can create concrete opportunities for cooperation. There are therefore important benefits if we take the necessary steps and if we move beyond natural resources but also look at economic resilience, security, peace and community resilience as all being factors in our endeavours that are equally important and that we need to address. If you'll indulge me, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to emphasise the cross-border nature of the topics that we're discussing this afternoon. When you talk about pastoralists, pasture land, rangelands and drought, these are no respecters of borders. Communities may be affected in a given country, but they're more likely to be affected across countries because of this cross-border nature of these disasters and elements. People will be forced to move looking for better conditions either in border regions or across borders. So security and safety is therefore vitally important. And I'm talking about the safety of migrants on the move as well as security and safety in the final destination that they move to once they've been compelled to move. If we look at Eastern, Western and Central Africa and the reality of such human mobility phenomenons, this highlights the need to reverse prevailing trends. in order to prevent the current challenges becoming ever more large in scale and ever more concerning, and things getting fully out of hand. I would like, at this juncture, to recall some key points before I wrap up my part. I think there are four different practical aspects we need to turn our attention to. The first of these is the realities with which countries and regions are confronted. Second, we need to ensure a better understanding of the link between cause and effect, in other words, to be able to better pinpoint the underlying causes of human mobility and migration. We also need to look at, as our third point, the way in which we can coordinate different ministerial agendas to respond to these phenomenon to make sure we have a whole of government and whole of society response there too, and not just government, but working with other key partners. My fourth point is the important need to address financing and funding on all of this money. This is often vital in addressing all the different problems that we've discussed already this afternoon and that we will continue to discuss going forward. It often comes down to the means and the money to be able to follow through on solutions. And I think that's a salient point that we need to introduce and show is fully factored into the approach that we adopt. And that's equally important, of course, to ensure that money is front and center of the responses that we bring to bear to drought, which is often a driver of all the phenomena we're discussing. Thank you very much, madam, for giving me the floor.

You have to invite speakers from the floor.

Having said that, I would like to give the floor to anyone who would like to speak, or should we carry on with our debate? Yes, you have the floor, madam. We have Dr. Amna **** Abdullah, is that you?

Okay, okay.

Could you please introduce yourself? Yes, please. Please, you have the floor.

Cabo Verde.

Cabo Verde.

Cabo Verde, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Excellencies, delegates and colleagues, For a sits like Cabo Verde, my own country, climate mobility is not a future scenario. It is indeed a lift reality already. Climate change, land degradation, and prolonged drought are eroding livelihoods, reducing agricultural productivity, increasing water insecurity, and accelerating rural to urban migration. This environmental pressure, if left unaddressed, can deepen inequalities, strain institutions, and undermine social cohesion. This is why we believe that climate mobility must be understood not only as a humanitarian issue, but also as a development, security, and resilience challenge. Experience in Cabo Verde has shown that investing in land restoration, sustainable water management, and ecosystem resilience is also an investment in stability. Restoring degraded landscapes creates jobs, strengthens food security, reduces vulnerability, and helps people remain in their communities with dignity and hope. In other words, restoring land restores opportunity. As Cabo Verde has been emphasizing, mobility itself is not the problem. As a diaspora nation whose human mobility has always been part of our history, we know that it can also be a source of resilience and development, a true challenge. There is a big challenge when people are forced to move because of climate impact, including desertification, leaving them with no viable alternative. So our collective objective should be to expand people's choices and not to limit their movement. This requires, of course, integrated policies, that breach the traditional divide between environment, development, peace and security. As the international community advances discussions on climate mobility, we must move from reaction, sorry, from reacting to displacement to investing in the causes that provoke it. So we should invest in prevention. resilience and human security. Healthy land, resilient communities and sustainable livelihoods are among the strongest foundations for lasting peace. Thank you.

And now get the floor to Chad.

Thank you, Chair. On behalf of the Minister of Environment, who unfortunately cannot be here, and also in my personal capacity, I would like to sincerely thank UNCCD for having organized this high-level ministerial event on the nexus that is security and migration. My statement will cover three points. Firstly, why land degradation is a driver of migration, secondly the relevance for Chad, and thirdly a call for action. So in Chad, climate change and desertification are not a far off prospect, they are everyday reality. We are seeing the degradation of land and means of subsistence which have pushed our population to move, to become displaced. We are finding that natural resources are being exhausted and changed by climate change and we are finding that we're seeing internal and external migration. We need to restore land so that they can restore dignity and reintroduce choice for the population. This is absolutely vital for the people of Chad. Chad is a victim of climate change. We're not a polluting country and we're paying a very heavy price for a problem that we are not involved in creating. So we need to look for predictable financing to cope with the impact of climate change, we need to make sure that we do this, that we take action, because investing in land and land restoration is investing in crisis prevention. Given this situation, we are launching an appeal. that the commitments undertaken in previous COPs with specific projects planned, investment in land and human security take place. This is the way in which we can make sure that communities can stay in the lands of origin and are not forcibly displaced. We are in favor of human mobility and we need to have this integrated into financing mechanisms and land duration and desertification combating initiatives. So we need to invest in different ways. We need to make sure that we invest in cooperation, which will push forward a dialogue to prevent land degradation, so that we have a strategy of prevention and link this to strategies to manage migration. And we need to involve local communities. so that they are involved in all the projects and implements them. With your permission, Chair, I would like to conclude my statement by saying that land degradation is our common challenge. We need to all work together to be ambitious in addressing it to have a more stable, safer future for all. Thank you.

Any further speakers?

Thank you, Chair. It is a privilege to deliver these remarks on behalf of the government of Republic of Uganda. We gather at a critical time when impacts of land degradation, recurrent drought, climate fragility are no longer abstract environmental concerns. They are immediate drivers of forced displacement, pastoral friction, socioeconomic vulnerability, and national and regional security challenges. As a country, Uganda continues to demonstrate unwavering commitment to humanitarian principles currently hosting over two million refugees and asylum seekers and seasonal transhumance pastoralists. However, as environmental pressures intensify and land degradation accelerates, the nexus between resource scarcity, climate shock and human mobility demand an integrated cross-sectional response that links sustainable environmental stewardship directed to national security, peace and resilience. Anchoring Uganda's response in key regional commitments. The government of Uganda recognizes that climate-induced mobility and environmental fragility require clear policy coherence across borders. Our national response aligns closely with key framework that bridge environmental management and migration governance. These include the Kampala Declaration on Migration Environment and Climate Change championed by Uganda and regional partners in Kampala Declaration provide our operational guide for addressing human mobility in the context of climate change. It is reinforced It reinforces our commitment to integrating climate displacement into national development plans, strengthening early warning mechanism and investing in land restoration to build grassroot resilience. The protocol on free movement of person. Uganda consciously supports the implementation of the regional free movement protocol, predictable regularized cross-border mobility acts as a critical safety valve and adaptation strategy for communities facing severe environmental shocks, climate vulnerability, and resource depletion. Recognizing that pastoralism is both an economic driver and adaptive strategy during severe drought, Uganda, however, emphasizing the implementation of the protocol under controlled environment. By establishing a regulated movement, designated transhumance corridors, and shared border infrastructure, we proactively address and resolve potential resource-based conflicts between pastoralists and host communities over pasture and water. And in this way, we control transboundary animal diseases. Operationalizing the humanitarian development peace nexus. Through our implementation of comprehensive refugee response framework, Uganda ensures that environmental protection, land restoration, and climate adaptation initiatives benefits host communities and displacement population alike, preserving social, cohesion and regional stability. Uganda's strategic priorities for action. To effectively address security and climate-induced fragility, maintaining stability, the government of Uganda advocates for four immediate operational priorities. One, regulating human mobility. Two, prioritizing sustainable land restoration. Three, enhancing inter-ministerial coordination, human mobility, and land degradation cuts across traditional institutions mandates. Uganda calls for seamless institutionalized coordination across environmental, foreign affairs, defense, internal affairs, and displacement portfolio to ensure holistic governance, strengthening community resilience, Pastoral practices and alternative livelihood are vital to reducing community vulnerability before crisis forces displacement. In conclusion, your excellences, the convergence of land degradation, security challenges, and human mobility requires direct and broad action by all parties and stakeholders. Uganda remains steadfast in leveraging regional and international framework to build a secure, resilient, and climate adaptive global community. We need to work on a program approach and to do away with working in silos. Thank you for your attention.

I'd just like to remind speakers that we really would urge you to stick to three minutes maximum, please.

Excellencies and distinguished delegates, it is a great honor for Indonesia to participate on the UN NCDT Secretariat at the Government of Mongolia event discussion on security and migration Indonesia recognizes that land degradation biodiversity loss and climate change are interconnected challenges for Indonesia restoring degraded land is an investment in our people our security and our future under the leadership of President Prabowo Subianto Indonesia is committed to translating our land degradation neutrality ambition into concrete and measurable actions. First, Indonesia has rehabilitated approximately 2.3 million hectares until 2025 and projected to restore 12.3 million hectares of degraded land.

Second.

Indonesia is also strengthening community-based forest management. To date, 8.3 million hectares have been allocated under social forestry schemes, benefiting more than 1.4 million households. Under customary forest schemes, 368,000 hectares have been recognized with the target of 1.4 million hectares. We must trust the people as the best guardian of forests. Third, promoting agroforestry system, integrating forestry, food and energy security that contribute to strengthening forest-based value chains and multi-business forestry. Fourth, enhancing governance, transparency and sustainable forest management including through the strengthening of our timber legality and sustainability assurance system supported by spatial-based technologies. Lastly, to advance forest rehabilitation innovative financing, Indonesia develops a high-integrity forest carbon market through Presidential Regulation number 110 of 2025, and the Ministerial Regulation number six of 2036 that provides a credible and inclusive framework with the local communities and private sector participation. Distinguished delegates, our strategic priorities include watershed governance, large scale forest rehabilitation, public private partnership for restoration and private sector participation. Indonesia stands ready to strengthen partnership and share experiences with countries and stakeholders to accelerate action toward land degradation neutrality. I thank you.

Thank you, Indonesia. Now I give the floor to Azerbaijan.

Thank you, Excellencies, distinguished colleagues. Today we discuss how the land restoration important for stability and our future. When land can no longer provide food, water or income, people may leave their homes in search of safety and opportunity. This is why land degradation is also a question of security, migration and stability. But they should not see migration only as consequences of environmental degradation. They should also see it as a human story, a story of families trying to protect their future. This is why restoring land means restoring hope. We need stronger integration between environmental development, humanitarian and migration policies. We need to invest in communities, including local farmers, women and young people before environmental pressure become crisis. During COP29, by launching Baku Harmonia Climate Initiative for Farmers, Azerbaijan highlighted importance of this issue. In Azerbaijan, as a part of national development agenda, the land restoration goes hand in hand with the great return of internally displaced people in Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur. During World Urban Forum hosted by Azerbaijan this year, they have opportunity to share our own story. Their 30 years hope was turned to reality. The mining of this land remind an essential issue to ensure the livelihood in safe way and bring the community back. For sustainable environmental restoration, together with Turkey, they launched project on Turkey-Azerbaijan International Forest Training Center and supplying production facility in this region. They also recognize how inland water bodies, coastal lands, and communities suffer from climate-related impact. Declining level of Caspian Sea is one of the example of such challenges in our region. Dear colleagues, the success of our efforts should not be measured by how many times we talk about resilience, but by how many people and communities become resilient and safer on their land. Thank you.

Thank you for.

Thank you, Azerbaijan. I now call Mali.

Thank you for giving me the floor. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, ministers, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour for me to take the floor on behalf of the Republic of Mali on a topic that has brought us together today, that is the nexus between land, drought security and human migration. This is really at the heart of our concerns in the Sahel. It's not only an environmental challenge that we are facing, we are seeing that there is a systematic chain reaction. We are seeing that when the land is degraded, that resources are scarce, assistance is not possible, and we are seeing there's food insecurity and Millions of young people are forced to migrate, and often this is highly dangerous. We need a concrete response to this, one which is an integrated response, which is transformative. Mali's experience can tell you that it is not only an issue of planting trees. We need to have a sustainable restoration of land, we need to strengthen the resilience of communities, and to create new means of subsistence. our experience has taught us first and foremost that the Great Green Wall is a good integrated approach which involves land restoration, food security, sustainable management of natural resources, job creation and empowerment of communities. Indeed, through land restoration, we are giving back value to the natural capital that is in the Sahel and that strengthens communities. It gives a secure food production and strengthens local networks, in particular for women and young people. In the Sahel, the Great Green Wall must be considered not only as a way of restoring ecosystems, but also as a genuine tool to serve preventative security for peace considered and it allows us to transform land into opportunities and really encourages means of subsistence to be bolstered and strengthens communities. And I'd like to thank the World Bank and other donors who have committed to this project. Our action has transformed Sahel. from a place that people are forced to leave to a land of opportunity. And by promoting a green economy, we are really adapting to climate change and mitigating its impact. Ladies and gentlemen, as Chair of the Council of Ministers of the Great Green Wall, I'd like to confirm that this continental initiative shows very well that the land is the most important lever for us to to tackle human instability. The great great green walls investment is not only serving to turn the Sahel green, it is creating dignity for our people and hope for our continent. Thank you.

Merci Mali.

Thank you Mali. I now get the floor to

Distinguished heads of delegation, ladies and gentlemen, the Kyrgyz Republic is also a mountainous country. We have food security ensured by agricultural lands and our water resources, and we have many smallholder families. But we are vulnerable to drought and mobility of populations. This is a vital topic for us to tackle. Climate change and land degradation are absolutely vital for us to tackle for our agricultural community to make sure that they can stay to work their and not be subject to migration. This is why we have invested into agricultural lands to make sure that we're investing in food security and stable local communities in our populations. We have a national community for the Republic's development to 2030 and the food security policy to 2030. We have identified our national goals to combat land degradation. Our five-year programme, 2026-2030, has called for us to promote measures to restore the land in the mountainous regions of our country. We have many measures which have been adopted already through our national campaign to create a green heritage. A green heritage means investing in our forests and also in agricultural land and pastoral land. We consider our land to be vital for our communities, for our population and for international cooperation. And so our slogan is Forests for Peace, which is very important indeed for us in our mountainous areas. In 2027, we are going to hold the second Mountainous Summit. Advantage Regions Summit, Bishkek 2027. This will be an international platform to discuss issues of sustainable development for mountainous territories, to preserve glaciers and to make sure we can have sustainable development of our mountainous areas and to protect communities from natural disasters. We will be focusing on food security, sustainable land use, adaptation of agriculture, agricultural lands to climate change. These will all be focused on in our discussions. We'd like to use this opportunity to invite all interested states and international organizations, financial institutions, and research and academic circles to participate in this event next year. Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, every hectare of land which is restored means a healthier ecosystem but also a source of income and a sustainable legacy for our young people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kyrgyzstan. And now call Mauritania.

In the name of Allah.

The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Thank you, President. Chair, Your Excellencies, dear ministers, ladies and gentlemen, Mauritania is pleased to take part in this important ministerial session examining the nexus of land deterioration, drought, security, and migration. For my country, this nexus is not a theoretical one. It is a reality that is faced by our local communities for decades now, particularly among populations in rural and pastoral areas. Desertification, recurrent drought, rangeland deterioration, and dwindling water resources all lead to undermining livelihoods of our populations. These phenomena can also increase pressures on natural resources and increase the competitiveness over land, water and pastures, which can lead to exacerbated vulnerabilities and more social tensions. But we believe that land restoration can also be a tool for prevention, stability and peace. Indeed, in Mauritania, we pay tremendous attention to the restoration of deteriorated ecosystems and the sustainable rangeland management and combating rangeland fires and stabilizing sand dunes and restoring rangelands as well as increased community resilience. Our experience has taught us that there's no one country that can combat all of these challenges alone. because the dynamics of desertification, transhumance, and natural resource management more often than not are trans-border phenomena. This is why promoting regional and trans-border cooperation is of the essence, particularly in the Sahel region. We must also strengthen cross-sector and inter-ministerial coordination, particularly among the ministries of environment, agriculture, livestock development, water, foreign and internal affairs, finance and development and humanitarian action. Our message here is clear. Proactive action must be invested, must benefit from more investments instead of limiting ourselves to crisis response. This is why we call upon our development partners and international finance institutions, as well as climate funds and mechanisms for land restoration finance. All of them must pay greater attention to vulnerable countries and the most exposed regions. Investing in land restoration and drought resilience, as well as sustainable natural resource management, is an investment in livelihoods. This contributes to reducing displacement inducing factors, as well as preventing tensions and ensuring better prospects for peace and stability at a sustainable level. And Mauritania is willing and ready to engage in regional and international partnerships and to share its experience with desertification, land restoration and strengthening local community resilience. Because restoring land is more than an environmental commitment, but it's a powerful tool for prevention, resilience and peace and security. Thank you very much for your kind listening.

Many thanks to Mauritania. I now give the floor to Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea are not in the room, it seems. So I give the floor to France. France, you have the floor.

Thank you, President. Sorry. Dear friends, soils are at the heart of human and economic development. When soils are endangered, we deepen poverty and socio-economic inequalities, intensify competition over land and natural resources, contribute to tensions and ultimately to displacement and migration. France therefore welcomes the opportunity to hold this dialogue. Our approach should first focus on prevention and on reducing vulnerabilities, but environmental factors also deeply interact with economic, social, political and governance factors, as stressed in the decision adopted at COP16. This is precisely why these issues must be addressed in a coherent and integrated manner. More than ever, we need to strengthen the synergies between agendas and the three Rio Conventions. We ultimately need to encourage models of country platforms encompassing all aspects of the environment crisis into holistic national planning strategies. This is also why France placed the link between desertification and security high on the agenda during its G7 presidency this year with the adoption of a ministerial declaration developed in close cooperation with the UNCCD.

Thank you, France. Thank you. I would like to thank our different speakers. I think we have come to the end of the list of requests for the floor and we have come to the end of the agenda, so we can adjourn this segment.

Thank you very much for all of the country delegates, for all of your insights and your contributions. And thank you very much to Minister Hale from Cameroon for his moderation. Right now, I have the pleasure to introduce Miss Samantha Baez Torres. She's the IOM youth delegate to the COP17. And this is the official youth call to action. Miss Torres is a recent international relations graduate from Universidad Iberoamericana. Her experience includes supporting refugees and alumni asylum seekers, developing policy papers, and collaborating with Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on UN Habitat frameworks and urban agendas, as well as with Amnesty International on human rights. She brings a grounded youth perspective to discussions on land degradation, climate vulnerability, and human mobility. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Torres to the podium.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon and hello to everyone.

When you look at a map of land degradation, you see soil indexes and arid zones. But I see something else. I see my beautiful country, Mexico, a land known for its vibrant mangroves losing more than 27,000 hectares within five years. I see that lush green fading. And with it, the hope of its people. Mourning the very stories of the mangrove swamps my father used to tell me about, of where he walked when he was little. I see pastoralists who no longer recognize the roots their grandparents once walked. I see indigenous communities who teach the land the way a mother tongue is taught, watching that language slowly run out of words. We are talking about nearly 3.2 billion people affected worldwide and millions of human beings forced to move because of desertification. And I want to say something that could make people uncomfortable. Land degradation is not an ecological accident. It is the result of an economy that rewards extraction and punishes care. Someone gets richer while the soil gets poorer. For me, as a 23-year-old woman who grew up in the global south, this is not a projection for 2050. It is the daily feeling that the ground beneath my feet is losing its ability to sustain life. When land degrades, livelihoods collapse and choices narrow. Sometimes people are displaced, some migrate to adapt, others stay trapped without the resources to escape. In every case, the same thing happens. People lose the freedom to decide where and how they will build their future. So we need to understand that no local project will ever fix a global structural failure. And here I ask that we be honest with each other. Stop designing solutions any distance from the people who feel the consequences in their own skin. Look around these walls, beyond these walls, in Mongolia. People have spent generations reading the cycles of soil in order to survive in harmony with the land. And they no longer can. Land is the oldest prize we share. It is where the descendants of everyone listening to me today will live. We cannot isolate ourselves. No. We, as young people, need you. But you, as decision makers, need us. Ministers, officials, international partners. Young people are not here to create confrontation. Nor are we here to be a part of a diplomatic performance, to take a picture and just go home. We do not need another grand declaration that ends up gathering dust on a shelf. We already have enough dust. Each COP presidency should build on what came before, connecting the Riyadh agenda, the outcome from Ulaanbaatar, and the work of future presidencies. And young people must be included. No, no. Young people are already here. There are young people restoring land, working with farmers, mobilizing communities. We are already taking action. Look at Benin, for example. In the cotton growing areas, land degradation was making agriculture unattractive to rural youth. Through Tasco project, nearly 100 farms and over 500 plots have shifted to agroecological soil management. But you know what? The most important part cannot be captured in a number of hectares. Young people began to see a future in their own land again. That's what happens when we stop seeing young people as beneficiaries and we start seeing them as agents of implementation. So when we talk about youth, the question should no longer be, how many hectares do you restore? No. Let us also ask, how many people benefit? How many livelihoods were strengthened? Did communities have a voice in deciding what restoration should look like on their own land? That is why I ask you today for one concrete commitment before the next COP. The three Rio conventions together with IOM is whole pieces of this puzzle. The UNFCCC already has a task force on displacement. The UNCCD has a dedicated migration decision. Why not connect these pieces instead of duplicating them? Let's build a joint working group with three measurable tasks. Map risk. integrate human mobility and conflict sensitivity into adaptation plans, and measure restoration by expanded choices. And I would also like to add a fourth thing, that the work of young people does not disappear when this COP ends. The new generations are not here to make you look better. We are the ones who will implement or suffer while you all decide in this room. Please listen to us. We have a lot to say. Do not fight over a comma or a period in a text while the lamb beneath our feet disappears. Reach consensus and demonstrate through that decision the leadership needed to turn commitment into action. I trust you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Torres. That is a hard act to follow. Thank you so much for your strong and impassioned words to respect and see youth as agents of implementation. Youth are already involved and we need to respect and see them and acknowledge them for the work that they're doing. And I hope that the delegates here at COP17 take your words to heart throughout their negotiations in the coming week. I'm going to turn now to our second roundtable of the day, from dialogue to action, partnerships and new approaches. And I'd like to introduce our chair for this session, Ms. Otilia Belz. She is the senior vice president global issues at the Bosch Foundation. Over to you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues and partners. It is my honor to open this concluding interactive segment of today's ministerial dialogue entitled From Dialogue to Action, Partnerships and New Approaches. Throughout today's discussion, we have heard a consistent message. The interactions between land degradation, drought, climate change, insecurity and displacement are real and significant, yet complex and shaped by context. Where environmental pressures intersect with weak governance, exploitation of grievances and social tensions, vulnerabilities can deepen and risks to livelihoods and stability increase. Effective, conflict-sensitive land restoration and inclusive natural resource governance can advance not only environmental objectives, but also resilience and stability. At Robert Bosch Foundation, a core principle guides our work. True resilience is led by those who steward the land and know it best. Farmers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, women and youth are essential partners in building resilient, productive and peaceful landscapes and livelihoods. To support them, we might need to rethink policy assumptions and close governance gaps. Rooting our work in this principle has pointed us to three priorities that we'd like to offer as input into this discussion. First, secure land tenure and inclusive and equitable land governance are foundational. Recognized rights and predictable access to land and natural resources enable long-term investment in restoration and livelihoods. Inclusive governance can also help reduce tensions related to resource availability and management, alleviate pressures to migrate, expand people's choices, and strengthen social cohesion. Second, we recognize that human mobility is not solely a consequence of environmental or social crisis. In many contexts, Mobility is an important adaptive strategy that enables individuals and communities to respond to environmental variability and economic change. Third, conflict-sensitive and community-led approaches to natural resource management are critical. Local mechanisms for dialogue, reconciliation and grievance resolution can help manage competing demands on natural resources and foster cooperation on their use in fragile and conflict affected settings. In all this, we need to recognize that impacts of these interactions are not distributed evenly nor felt equally. We therefore need to integrate gender and equality into all efforts. And In many regional contexts, pastoralist communities play an important role in this nexus. Their stewardship of rangelands matters for livelihoods and ecosystem health. Supporting these functions and facilitating peaceful coexistence means recognizing mobility as part of adaptation and reflecting collective seasonal and mobile forms of land use in tenure arrangements while respecting the rights and needs of other land users. Reimagining the nexus and bringing it to life will require new forms of collaboration, partnership and financing. Our experiences offer first ideas that we hope today's conversation can complement and interrogate. First, financing needs to adjust its frame from viewing the convergence of climate, mobility and conflict as mainly a natural resource problem to recognizing it as a governance issue. This requires more agile, risk tolerant, continuity enabling and coordinated funding instruments, as well as a reconsideration of which solutions receive support. Second, more resources should reach the level where these challenges converge in practice. The local organizations, community-led initiatives and platforms led by rights holders, including indigenous peoples, pastoralists, women and youth. who are the primary responders to challenges and drivers of solutions. Third, we need practical models for collaboration between UNCCD national focal points, civil society organizations and local communities so that experiences on integrated approaches and social innovations can inform fit for purpose national implementation. Fourth, Political leadership and national ownership remain essential. We rely on the courage and willingness of national actors to engage across portfolios and commit to harmonize policies and programs that address the land migration security nexus coherently. And finally, philanthropic actors, including the Robert Bosch Foundation, can help test, connect, and scale partnership models. As we move into this final session, I look forward to hearing concrete experiences, expressions of support and proposals that also speak to necessary actions at different levels. And now, without further ado, I would like to open the floor for interventions and would like to ask for interventions by country delegates first.

If you would like to speak, please press the button in the middle of your microphone device and it will light up green and then we will be able to see that you can speak. Thank you.

Are there any country delegates requesting the floor? If not, then I would like to turn to organization representatives who have requested to speak. And it's my honor of inviting Mrs. Ugochi Daniels, Deputy Director General for Operations at the International Organization for Migration, IOM. Please, you have the floor.

Thank you very much. I start with two facts. As we gather here in this beautiful country, across our planet, 3.2 billion people are left behind and impacted by desertification and land degradation. This massive demographic relies directly on the land for economic survival, food security, and community stability. And we're also dealing with future risk where 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050 at the current rates of land degradation that we heard so eloquently from our youth speaker, Samantha, just before. From dialogue to action, and for IOM, there is one fundamental challenge. We're far better at financing the displacement as a consequence rather than investing early enough to reduce its risk. Too often, funding arrives only after livelihoods have collapsed, communities have been uprooted, and human and financial costs have multiplied. We must reverse this. This means finance must reach communities before displacement becomes their only option. And as we heard this morning from the DSG, the investment pipeline itself is often missing. We know that drought, land degradation, and water scarcity are placing livelihoods under increasing pressure, but we always may not know where those pressures are most likely to translate into displacement and human mobility, which interventions could change that trajectory, how much those interventions would cost, or which financing instruments would take them to scale. And that's exactly where IOM is acting in three interconnected ways. First, through our Climate Mobility Innovation Labs, we help governments identify risks earlier and translate evidence into action. And if we can identify risk earlier, governments can invest earlier and at a far lower human and financial cost. Second, we are supporting countries Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Fiji, and Somalia to develop climate mobility investment plans that are prioritized, costed, and investment pipelines that governments and partners and climate funds can fund and scale. And third, we are connecting the entire investment chain. through our climate mobility investment facilities, which connect the evidence generated through the innovation labs and the pipelines through the climate investment plans with governments, climate funds, financial institution and investors. Ultimately, it's about changing when, where, and how we invest. We must move for paying for displacement after it happens to financing resilience, livelihoods, and stability before people are forced to move. I started with a fact, and I end with a question by which we should collectively judge our success. Did finance arrive while people still had choices, or only after displacement became the most expensive option? And I call on all of us. to challenge ourselves with this question as we work to ensure that people's land is restored and that the hope that we talk of is not an aspiration but a reality. I thank you.

Thank you for your contribution, Mr. Daniels. And I would like to invite Mr. Abu Amani, Director of the Water Sciences Division and Assistant Director General of the Science Sector and Interim United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO. Please, you have the floor.

Thank you, Excellencies, for giving me the floor. Honorable ministers, ladies and gentlemen, UNESCO is honored to contribute to this high-level event on security and migration. As you know, UNESCO was created after the Second World War to build peace in the minds of men and women through education, sciences, culture, and communication and information. Today, we recognize that the environment, peace, and sustainability are profoundly linked to each other. We salute the work of UNCCD in the production of its publication, Ground for Peace, Land Degradation Restoration for International Peace and Security. Our message to you is straightforward. Build peace on the foundation on healthy ecosystems and right govern framework for fresh water and land. By understanding the nexus of land, water, food system, and the need to diverse systems of knowledge and livelihood, we can define a sustainable pathway where peace flourish, biodiversity ecosystem are restored, and people regain their trust relationship with each other. In our work with transhumant pastoralists in Africa, we learn not only how rich their knowledge systems are, how many environmental issues could be addressed by combining science with indigenous and local knowledge, while at the same time, we heard clearly that a rights-based approach is not just nice to have, it is axiomatic to achieving sustainability and peace. One of our key messages is about recognizing the risks of conflict between farmers and herders, the threats to social cohesion during droughts, and slow onset ecosystem changes. Rigid models of conservation on the one hand, and pastoralism on the other, are not going to make sense in a sustainable climate making. As climate change manifests primarily through water cycle, water is recognized as a climate connector. that allows for greater collaboration and coordination across the majority of targets for climate change in the Paris Agreement, the Agenda 2030, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. In drylands, we need to consider the importance of groundwater and particularly transboundary water management, governance, and cooperation. UNESCO, through its Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, provides climate resilient water management tools that enable countries to move from reactive drought response to proactive drought risk management. UNESCO has supported mapping, modeling, and monitoring of transboundary aquifers with more than 400 inventoried transboundary aquifer systems, providing common evidence base for cooperation. UNESCO is expanding also its work on ecohydrology sites and combining this with our highly successful work on designated sites in the World Heritage Convention, the Man and Biosphere Programme, and the UNESCO Global Geopark. Distinguished delegates, ministers, indigenous people, local communities, and civil society, we need funding gap to be filled so that we can work with all partners in order to deliver sustainably to the communities for peace and also UNESCO stands with you as a partner in restoring land, water, peace and sustainability. I thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Amani. And I would like to give the floor now to Ms. Chizuru Aoki, Manager, Division of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Funds with the Global Environmental Facility.

Thank you, Madam, and thank you for the opportunity. Finance obviously plays a very catalytic and enabling role in restoring land, securing access to natural resources, supporting livelihoods, and strengthening local institutions in many fragile and conflict-affected settings. I just want to give one example. In Burkina Faso, pastoral mobility is shaped by security conditions in addition to biomass production and the availability of water resources. A project supported by two GEF funds is financing the resilience of pastoral production systems with conflict-sensitive approaches. It's improving local governance, supporting land tenure security, mobility and livelihoods. Now, since this session is about action as well as commitments, let me share three commitments from the Global Environment Facility, which is serving the Rio Conventions as well as three additional multilateral environment agreements and our family of six funds. And the three commitments that we're willing to put on the table, the first one is about targeted support. In the GEF9 period, which just started in July of this year, the GEF family of funds is presenting opportunities to mobilize, de-risk, leverage larger scale, longer term support, including blended finance. In particular, our climate funds, they're called the Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund, they're supporting integration of climate resilience into infrastructural planning in post-conflict countries, And they're also supporting environmental peace building, restoration of ecosystems, locally led and gender responsive adaptation and inclusive social protection. Our support can catalyze financing at scale from international financing institutions, and that can actually bring longer term concessional support for these countries, including International Development Association, IDA support, as well as other post-conflict reconstruction support programs. The second commitment we can make is that we're embedding flexibility and conflict sensitivity in our policies and operational guidelines so that finance can better address the needs of communities that are facing fragility, displacement, and insecurity. And this is what the youth delegate, Ms. Torres, called for, which is really what kinds of benefits are being brought to the communities and people on the ground. The third commitment we can make is on the partnership. and in particular the country platforms. We're fully committed to support country driven strategies grounded in country leadership. Country platforms can offer practical opportunities for countries to turn national strategies, including land management into bankable investment portfolios with technical assistance, concessional finance and policy reforms. So we're working very closely with International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in a number of countries, and we will continue this partnership and also further work with the country platform hub. These efforts can also strengthen engagement and coherence with our sister climate funds, including the Green Climate Fund, climate investment funds, and others. And let me close. by sharing that the JEF is entering a very exciting new era with the start of the four year programming period until 2030, and also the appointment of a new CEO and chair, Mr. Diego Mesa-Puyol. We stand ready to continue to support this important convention and the land agenda and continue our evolution to be your partner of choice. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Wookim. And I would now like to give the floor to the representative of UNDP, United Nations Development Program.

Thank you, Chair, Excellencies, Ministers, distinguished guests, partners and colleagues. We meet at a time when climate change, land degradation and drought are placing growing pressure on people and ecosystems around the world. Land degradation and drought are no longer simply environmental concerns. They are increasingly drivers of fragility that affect food security, livelihoods, human mobility and social stability. The scale is significant. As it was heard earlier, around 3.2 billion people are affected by land degradation. Around 1.5 billion people have been affected by drought since the beginning of this century. And by 2030, up to 700 million people could be at risk of displacement because of drought. Moreover, 78% of people internally displaced by conflict and violence live in countries with high or very high climate vulnerability, highlighting the growing overlap between fragility, displacement, and environmental stress. Healthy land is fundamental to sustainable development. Investing in restored landscapes and drought resilience means protecting livelihoods, creating economic opportunities, and helping build the foundations for stability and peace. Today's challenges are deeply interconnected. Climate change, biodiversity loss, Poverty, inequality and weak governance often reinforce one another, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings. This requires integrated solutions. We need to bring together climate and nature action, livelihoods, governance, crisis prevention and peacebuilding. Such approaches address multiple risks at once and deliver greater benefits for people, nature and development. Land and ecosystem restoration provides a powerful entry point. Restoring landscapes can strengthen food and water security, create jobs and build resilience to climate shocks. When grounded in local ownership and conflict-sensitive approaches, Restoration can strengthen cooperation around shared natural resources, build trust, and contribute to long-term stability. Financing remains a critical challenge. We need to break down the silos between climate, nature, development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding finance. Investments in land restoration deliver across all five objectives, strengthening livelihoods, ecosystem health, resilience and stability. Together with its partners such as the GEF, the GCF, UNDP is committed to supporting this agenda through our work in over 100 countries. The Peace Forest Initiative in Central Asia demonstrates how ecosystem restoration can advance sustainable livelihoods, regional cooperation and dialogue around shared natural resources. In Somalia, UNDP has also supported the integration of human mobility considerations into national adaptation planning in a fragile and high displacement context. Every hectare of land restored is more than an environmental success. It is a livelihood protected, a humanitarian crisis prevented, a displacement risk reduced, and an investment in lasting peace. UNDP stands ready to work with all partners to advance this agenda. Thank you.

Thank you very much for those insights from UNDP. And I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Lifeng Li, Director, Land and Water Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. A few thanks for convening this important session to discuss and find solutions to security and migration. Land degradation is not simply an environmental issue. It is food security, livelihoods, and human security issue. Globally, 1.66 billion hectares of land are degraded due to human activities. and over 60% of that occurs on agricultural lands. Compounded by the desertification, drought, water scarcity, climate extremes and conflicts, land degradation threatens the production of agriculture and the drivers of food insecurity, migration and the forced displacement. According to the 2026 Global Report on Food Crisis, the number of forcibly displaced people in countries with food crisis reached to 85.1 million, of which 73.5% were domestically displaced in 2025. On the flip side of this challenge, there is opportunity. Healthy and productive landscapes are foundation of resilient communities. They provide food, water, income and livelihood and can create the conditions for people to remain safely and productively on their own land. This is why resilient and inclusive agro-food systems are part of the solution. Sustainable land management, restoration, drought resilience and climate smart agriculture as well as inclusive livelihoods can strengthen resilience, social stability and peace. It is not a theory. We see this in practice. In the Gambia and across West Africa, in partnership with the governments, WFP and IOM, and with Peacebuilding Fund support, I feel it's implementing these solutions in addressing land degradation, declining yield and resource scarcity. In the Sahel, together with the Liptako-Goma Authority and IOM and with the Peacebuilding Fund support, our interventions strengthen the local capacity, cross-border coordination and pastoral infrastructures, improving access to water and fodder while enhancing household economic resilience. These experiences remind us that land restoration cannot simply mean making degraded land green again. What matters is restoring healthy and functioning and productive landscapes that support food production, livelihood and biodiversity and resilience. To move from individual projects to impact at scale, we need knowledge, we need investment and we need strong institutions. Yet financing remain a major constraint. Annual investment of 65 billion US dollars in restoration falls far short of the 300 billion required to meet the restoration target. Redirecting just 1% of annual agri-food revenues around 90 billion towards on-farm restoration could help to close this financing gap and deliver transformative benefit for farmers, economies and the planet. For FAO, the objective is therefore not only to restore land, but to restore productive capacity, livelihood and hope. FAO will continue working with parties in tackling desertification, land degradation and drought through integrated agri-food system solutions, moving from recognition to delivery. moving from isolated efforts to results at scale for a more resilient, sustainable and peaceful future for all. I thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Li, for sharing the perspective of FAO. And I know that we have reached the end of the initial list. I would like to open the floor to everyone to contribute their remarks. Are there any requests for the floor? I see no more requests for the floor, so I would like to close this session. Thank you to all colleagues and partners who have contributed to this discussion on partnerships and new approaches. Based on our conversations in this section, I'm optimistic that jointly we can identify and scale the governance, partnership and financing arrangements which are needed to translate integrated approaches into sustained action at national, regional and transboundary levels, particularly in fragile and conflict affected settings. We've heard that restoration and drought resilience should be recognized as investments in prevention, livelihoods, resilience and stability. We've also heard that effective approaches must be country-led, locally grounded, conflict-sensitive and shaped through meaningful participation. And last but not least, governance, partnerships and financing must support continuity from preparing and dialogue through implementing, implementation and scaling. Thank you all for your contributions. And I now, I've seen a request for the floor from the delegate of Poland. So I'll give the floor to Poland. Sorry, I think that was a mistake. If there are no more requests, I would like to hand back to Ms. Jenna Gawanic of Fako Foundation. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you to all the participants of the last session and all of your very, very important words, very much appreciated and well heard. I would like to welcome back to the stage His Excellency Enkhbayar Batumar, who will give our closing remarks for the session. Over to you.

Distinguished delegates, our productive and action-oriented session today is now coming to a close. Throughout this high-level meeting, we have examined the multifaceted linkages between land degradation, security, and migration, the challenges observed across the vast steppes of Mongolia, as well as experiences shared from other nations and regions globally. underscored that resolving immediate crisis is not enough. We must urgently implement comprehensive measures aimed at securing long term financing stability and global solidarity. Specifically, our collective discussions have highlighted the following key imperatives. First, recognizing core foundations, acknowledging that land restoration and environmental in some from form the essential bedrock of social stability, security and sustainable development and elevating this priority to the highest political levels, particularly in fragile and conflict affected regions. Second, enhancing institutional synergies. Here, strengthening alignment and high level coherence among environmental, sustainable development, humanitarian and peacebuilding institutions to to address the land degradation security migration Nexus effectively third securing political commitments and mobilizing sustained political support and concrete commitments for peace responsive sustainable land management through cross-cultural sectoral Partnerships and and for the Foster multi-sectoral alignment improving coordination across the environmental foreign affairs Finance security sectors and next integrating last restoration into policy, position and land restoration at the core of the humanitarian peace building and crisis prevention strategies. And that last but not least, mobilize innovative finance, establish innovative financing mechanism to deliver the tangible support of vulnerable countries and regions. Building consensus on this actionable priorities mark significant step toward and I would like to thank my sincere gratitude to everybody involved. Thank you.

Thank you very much for those closing remarks. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, partners, colleagues, we have now come to an end of the inter-ministerial panel on event on security and migration. I would like to thank you all for being with us. A special thanks to those of you who have been with us for all three hours, sitting here with us, listening to all of the conversations and the discussions. I would like specifically like to thank the COP17 presidency, the distinguished speakers, our co-chairs, our youth representative, Ms. Torres, thank you very much, our wonderful interpreters without whom none of this would be possible. Thank you so much for the excellent work and of course the production team. And I would just like to leave you with maybe a few last words about the urgency of the situation. I think one of the things that has come across throughout these last three hours is how urgent and critical this is. Land degradation, desertification and drought are urgent issues that need to be addressed in a cohesive and coherent manner. And I hope we can walk away with, I would like to repeat what Mr. Nugent from Ireland said, the best time to invest would have been decades ago, but the second time to invest is now. Thank you very much and have a nice evening.