- The 12-day 14th Conference of Parties (COP14) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) began on September 2, 2019 at India Expo Centre & Mart, Greater Noida.
- Briefing media persons, Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Shri Prakash Javadekar in presence of Executive Secretary, UNCCD, Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw; MoS, MoEF&CC; Shri Babul Supriyo and other dignitaries, expressed how mass awareness and public participation is the need of the hour.
- Pointing to an unprecedented global campaign to save productive land, Javadekar said 122 countries, among them Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Russia and South Africa, which are among the largest and most populous nations on Earth, “have agreed to make the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving land degradation neutrality a national target.”
- Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will inaugurate the high-level segment meeting on 9th September, 2019.
- This year, India being the global host for COP 14 will take over the COP Presidency from China for the next two years till 2021
UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
- The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management. The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found.
- The Rio Conference in 1992 called on the United Nations General Assembly to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INCD) to prepare, by June 1994, a Convention to Combat Desertification, particularly in Africa.
- In December 1992, the General Assembly agreed and adopted resolution 47/188 on this matter. Working to a tight schedule, the Committee completed its negotiations in five sessions. The Convention was adopted in Paris on 17 June 1994 and entered into force on 26 December 1996, 90 days after the 50th ratification was received. 196 countries and the European Union are Parties as at August 2018.
- The Conference of the Parties (COP), which is the Convention’s supreme governing body, held its first session in October 1997 in Rome, Italy.
- India became a signatory to UNCCD on 14th October 1994 and ratified it on 17th December 1996.
- The main objective of the convention is to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought in countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, involving long-term integrated strategies that focus simultaneously, in affected areas, on improved productivity of land, and the rehabilitation, conservation and sustainable management of land and water resources, leading to improved living conditions, in particular at the community level.
