Scaling Integrated Approaches for Drylands and Drought Resilience

At the IUCN Congress, which took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the dialogue around the future of drylands was both urgent and deeply grounded in local realities. Drylands cover more than 40 percent of the Earth’s surface and sustain over 2 billion people. They are critical for global food production, biodiversity, and cultural heritage, yet these landscapes are among the most vulnerable to climate change, land degradation, desertification, and drought. Today, almost 2 billion people are affected by drought across over 100 countries, with mounting costs to ecosystems, economies, and human wellbeing increasing.

IUCN is supporting sustainable dryland management and drought resilience across more than 25 countries, combining global policy leadership with practical action on the ground. Through the Global Drylands Initiative, IUCN has advanced sustainable land and water management in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Through the Bonn Challenge, IUCN has mobilised large-scale restoration commitments to reverse land degradation. IUCN, together with FAO, leads the GEF-7 Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Programme (DSL-IP), assisting 11 countries across Africa and Asia to foster the resilience of production systems, promoting ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation, and improving livelihoods through integrated landscape approaches. Alongside other initiatives—like the project “Restoring Ecosystems to Reduce Drought Risk and Increase Resilience,” funded by the Austrian Development Agency as part of International Partnerships Austria, which has advanced Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for drought adaptation and mitigation across multiple countries—these experiences illustrate IUCN’s ability to convene diverse stakeholders, design comprehensive solutions, and deliver impact for people, nature, and climate in arid and semi-arid regions.

A Vision for Drylands from the UNCCD COP17 Presidency

Opening the session, H.E. Batbaatar Bat, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Mongolia, described how drought and desertification shape daily life across his country. Mongolia will host the 17th session of the Convention’s Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2026. COP17 will bring together UNCCD’s 197 Parties in a crucial global forum to accelerate action against desertification, land degradation and drought, and Mongolia

Mongolia’s leadership as host of COP17 is both timely and symbolic. With its vast rangelands and a people deeply connected to the land, the country represents both the challenges and the opportunities of living with drought. The country has already placed drylands at the centre of its Presidency through the forthcoming Rangeland Flagship Initiative. Mongolia’s Presidency offers a opportunity to demonstrate what collective ambition can achieve when countries, communities, and institutions work toward a shared goal to conserve drylands.

Moving Beyond Conversation Towards Coordination

The high-level panel—moderated by Dr. Chetan Kumar, Head of the Forest and Grasslands Team at IUCN—emphasised the urgency of building resilience against drought and other threats facing the world’s drylands. On stage were representatives from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UNCCD Secretariat, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM), and Saudi Arabia’s National Afforestation Programme, alongside government and civil-society partners.

“The scale of the drought challenge demands collective action,” Dr. Kumar said. “No single institution can solve this alone. IUCN’s role is to connect the dots between science, policy, and people, bridging gaps to ensure drylands are sustainably managed and made resilient everywhere.”

Jean-Marc Sinnassamy, Senior Environmental Specialist at the GEF, highlighted how the GEF’s upcoming GEF-9 replenishment and programming will take further advance ambitions for drylands: “The idea behind the Integrated Program on Drylands and Drought proposed for GEF-9 is to help countries prioritize their national drought plans, leveraging Nature-based Solutions, multiple sources of adaptation funding, and innovative partnerships such as the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership.”

Stéphanie Bouziges-Eschmann, Secretary General at the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM), stressed the importance of working with communities, as that is where real progress starts and where drought is felt most keenly: “To help communities to manage drylands and improve climate and drought resilience, concrete actions on the ground are needed to decrease the drivers of pressure, restore and implement adaptive agricultural practices,” she said.

Houria Djoudi, Dryland Forestry Officer at FAO, reflected on lessons from the GEF-7 Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Programme (DSL-IP), co-led by FAO and IUCN: “Embedded within FAO’s Global Drylands Programme, the GEF-7 Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Programme shows that integration across sectors and community-led action drive real change. Scaling up the successes and best practices from the 11 participating countries is vital to help drylands adapt to climate change, restore ecosystems, and secure resilient livelihoods.”

Ahmad Al-Anazi, Vice President of the National Afforestation Programme at Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification (NCVC), described the scale of ambition behind one of the world’s largest land-restoration efforts. “The National Greening Program (NGP) is a cornerstone of the Saudi Green Initiative, supporting the Kingdom’s Vision 2030," he said. "Through science-based planning, natural regeneration, and sustainable land management practices, the NGP is working with a broad range of partners to reverse land degradation, increase vegetation cover and improve the health and resilience of Saudi landscapes for generations to come.

Andrea Meza Murillo, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UNCCD Secretariat, rounded out the session by reflecting on progress across UNCCD COPs, noting how the pathway from Riyadh to Ulaanbaatar represents an evolution in ambition. “As we move from Riyadh to Ulaanbaatar, our priority is to maintain the momentum and turn commitments into collective action,” she said. “Through initiatives like the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership and Mongolia’s Rangeland Flagship Initiative, we are building a bridge of ambition, ensuring that land restoration and drought resilience remain at the top of the global agenda.”

Looking Ahead: A Shared Commitment to Drylands Resilience

As the session came to an end, the message was clear: drylands require the conservation community’s attention, and bringing institutions and communities together is the path to finding solutions. Every panellist reflected a different part of the same commitment: from unlocking finance and strengthening national capacities, to driving innovation locally and shaping policy coherence globally. IUCN will continue to work with partners and communities to bridge science, policy, and practice across regions, transforming ambition into action.