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Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) was adopted by countries in 2015 as one of the targets of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As LDN is a relatively new concept there is an increasing need for evidence on the potential socio-economic and environmental benefits of LDN as well as how an enabling environment for implementing LDN measures can be developed. This paper summarises the results from a global survey of LDN stakeholders, and a review of national progress in target setting that was commissioned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2018. The study presents the perceptions of relevant stakeholders on the key components of an enabling environment for achieving and maintaining LDN (institutional, financial, policy/regulatory, and science-policy) as well as expectations of multiple benefits from its implementation. We also highlight key challenges and gaps in progress to date that are emerging from ongoing national target setting programs to implement LDN. The study finds that progress in implementing LDN has been widespread across countries. However there remains a lack of awareness of LDN and its key concepts along with high-level political buy-in. This may be impeding the integration of LDN into national development planning and budgeting processes where progress was assessed as limited. National capacities for securing land tenure and governance arrangements and integrated land use planning were perceived as comparatively low, further hampering the implementation of LDN. Despite these gaps, most stakeholders (>90 %) who participated in the global survey expected LDN to deliver a broad range of multiple benefits for human wellbeing, livelihoods and the natural environment. We argue that greater efforts are needed to raise awareness of LDN, educate core stakeholders in its concepts, enablers and benefits, raise its political profile, and provide evidence on national measures that will support implementation

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations GeneralAssembly in September 2015 include a target on land degradation neutrality (LDN)(SDG 15.3). Attaining and maintaining LDN requires addressing a land governancechallenge to steer land management towards avoiding, reducing and reversingland degradation. Uptake of LDN can be catalysed by creating an enabling environmentfor LDN and by designing and implementing measures that achieve multiplebenefits through safeguarding and enhancing well-being and livelihoods of peopleaffected by land degradation while improving a range of environmental conditions.This report provides science-based evidence on the configuration of the enablingenvironment for LDN and the opportunities for multiple benefits.Three approaches are used to delineate the evidence base. First, a literaturereview summarizes contemporary trends in land governance and land markets,and assesses the implications for LDN. Second, a survey among practitioners andexperts involved in the LDN process gauges their perceptions and expectationsabout the enabling environment, multiple benefits and general progress of LDN.Third, a review of LDN Target Setting Programme (TSP) country reports contextualizesthe results from the survey. Insights from these sources are triangulated toformulate key messages and policy options. These highlight the multidimensionalnature of the LDN enabling environment, which requires enhanced vertical andhorizontal integration of institutions and governance mechanisms.Further, land governance and secure land tenure need to be adapted to local conditions.Evidence highlights the dynamics of land governance and the increasingimpacts of global value chains on local land management, providing both challengesand opportunities for LDN implementation. LDN stakeholders have highexpectations for multiple well-being and livelihood benefits to be attained throughLDN implementation. Evidence indicates that the level of achieved multip

Viewing humans as drivers of change operating outside the natural environment is unhelpful for defining interventions that effectively manage change and complexity. Indeed, there is now broad agreement that environmental governance needs to consider integrated social-ecological systems (SES) in order to tackle the world's grand challenges of land degradation. This requires a more differentiated, innovative approach that considers how changes in SES shape the functioning of land systems as a whole, and the synergies and trade-off these changes may produce. In this study, we identify and discuss some of the ways SES science and practice can inspire progress towards land degradation neutrality (LDN) outcomes in an integrated manner, through synthesis of literature and relevant documents related to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). We do these by considering: (i) how LDN has been approached to date and the challenges likely to undermine progress towards achieving it; and (ii) an SES-based LDN approach relevant to the neutrality agenda, in particular, by describing how LDN might be thought of differently through an SES lens. We argue that an SES approach focusing on: (i) “people as part of nature” not “people and nature”; and (ii) the frame of reference against which neutrality can be assessed across temporal and spatial dimensions, is necessary to both inform policy and guide actions of the different groups involved in avoiding and combating land degradation. Such an (integrated) approach adds a dimension (to achieving neutrality goals) not previously explored in sustainable land management and LDN research. Important next steps in operationalising the SES-based LDN approach involve empirical and field case studies, requiring interdisciplinary, mixed method techniques.

The world's commitment towards land degradation neutrality (LDN) became enshrined in various international agreements and decisions throughout the year 2015. The challenge now becomes one of addressing its operation, in order to achieve these new policy goals and targets by the year 2030. Advancing LDN demands attention to what the concept seeks to achieve, as well as unravelling the perspectives of the key multi-lateral environmental agreements through which progress can be made. The three Rio Conventions (the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)) all play key roles in shaping the international LDN governance and implementation context. Their different but related foci create a number of challenges and opportunities for advancing LDN. In this paper we critically analyze the literature to elucidate potential challenges and opportunities in moving LDN towards implementation, considering the mandates and objectives of all three Rio Conventions. We first unpack the concept of LDN's aspirations. We highlight the importance of the definitions and terminology used, and the relationships between those definitions, terms and the actors using them, as well as their implications in framing the range of policy actions and synergies that could benefit progress towards multiple Sustainable Development Goals. We then examine the LDN pilot project spearheaded by the UNCCD to identify key lessons for LDN implementation. Synthesizing these lessons, we present a portfolio of blended interventions that seeks to address the aspirations of the UNCCD, UNFCCC and CBD in the LDN space, identifying synergistic options for national actions to move towards LDN. Overall, our analysis provides insights in advancing LDN from its current position as a policy target, towards synergetic action.

Non-PR, IFPRI4; CRP5; Land Resource Management for Poverty Reduction, EPTD, CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE); CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and its sister conventions, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, all aim to halt or mitigate the deterioration of the ecological processes on which life depends. Sustainable land management (SLM) is fundamental to achieving the goals of all three Conventions. Changes in land management undertaken to address dryland degradation and desertification can simultaneously reduce net greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to conservation of biodiversity. Management to protect and enhance terrestrial carbon stocks, both in vegetation and soil, is of central importance to all three conventions. Protection of biodiversity conveys stability and resilience to agro-ecosystems and increases carbon storage potential of dryland systems. SLM improves livelihoods of communities dependent on the land. Despite these complementarities between the three environmental goals, tradeoffs often arise in their pursuit. The importance of human-environment interactions to the condition of land compels attention to adaptive management. In order to reconcile concerns and agendas at a higher strategic level, identification of synergies, conflicts, trade-offs, interconnections, feedbacks and spillover effects among multiple objectives, drivers, actions, policies and time horizons are crucial. Once these issues are transparent, coordinated action can be put into place across the three multilateral environmental agreements in the development of strategies and policy measures to support SLM. Copyright C 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and its sister conventions, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, all aim to halt or mitigate the deterioration of the ecological processes on which life depends. Sustainable land management (SLM) is fundamental to achieving the goals of all three Conventions. Changes in land management undertaken to address dryland degradation and desertification can simultaneously reduce net greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to conservation of biodiversity. Management to protect and enhance terrestrial carbon stocks, both in vegetation and soil, is of central importance to all three conventions. Protection of biodiversity conveys stability and resilience to agro-ecosystems and increases carbon storage potential of dryland systems. SLM improves livelihoods of communities dependent on the land. Despite these complementarities between the three environmental goals, tradeoffs often arise in their pursuit. The importance of human-environment interactions to the condition of land compels attention to adaptive management. In order to reconcile concerns and agendas at a higher strategic level, identification of synergies, conflicts, trade-offs, interconnections, feedbacks and spillover effects among multiple objectives, drivers, actions, policies and time horizons are crucial. Once these issues are transparent, coordinated action can be put into place across the three multilateral environmental agreements in the development of strategies and policy measures to support SLM.