Droughts in Africa and Asia, wildfires in Europe, and harvest failures for farmers across the world have intensified this year, even as the 2026-27 El Nino, forecast to be the strongest such event on record, is only just beginning to peak.
It is against this backdrop that delegates from over 200 countries are meeting from August 17 to August 28 in Ulaanbaatar for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) — the global treaty for halting land degradation before it costs them their ability to grow food or raise livestock.
The year 2026 is already tracking as one of the hottest years globally, driven by intense heatwaves and causing severe regional droughts.
COP17 in Mongolia comes at a time when land degradation and drought are increasingly affecting economies, food systems, water availability, and livelihoods across regions. And it is happening in a country which is one of the most degraded landscapes on Earth, with nearly 77 per cent of its land already affected, and its vast steppes are drying before its own herders’ eyes.
The degradation and desertification of land mean the reduction or loss of productivity of land to grow and sustain crops, livestock and vegetation, whether through climatic conditions or human pressures and affects soil health, food production, water resources, ecosystems, and livelihoods of communities dependent on that land.
Around 95 per cent of global food production depends on soil, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and as soil health declines, the food grown in it can carry fewer of the micronutrients people need — a problem increasingly described as “hidden hunger.”
According to the UN, the world continues losing the equivalent of four football fields of healthy land every second, adding up to 100 million hectares every year. Main drivers of this are deforestation, overgrazing, poor water management, urban expansion, climate change and unsustainable food systems.
Land is also the planet’s second-largest carbon sink after the oceans, with land ecosystems absorbing roughly 30 per cent of human-caused CO2 emissions each year — a job degraded land can no longer do well.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of the planet have become more arid (permanently drier) in the past 30 years compared to the previous 30-year period
Land degradation is already affecting up to 40 per cent of the world’s area — a crisis that impacts over 3.2 billion people, nearly half of the humanity, while droughts have increased by nearly one-third since 2000, according to the UNCCD.
In India, for example, an area of 638,000 hectares (ha) is affected by manmade desertification and land degradation in the country as on 2018-19, as per Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India (2021).
Land degradation and drought are not only environmental crises, but are increasingly recognised as risk multipliers that can deepen economic vulnerability, resource pressures and instability, particularly in fragile regions.
Despite their cascading effects on societies and economies, land degradation and drought remain among the most underestimated crises in global policy, a gap COP17 is trying to close.
Over the next two weeks in Ulaanbaatar, governments, scientists and civil society groups will negotiate on drought preparedness, land restoration financing, and how progress toward reversing degradation is tracked, alongside dedicated discussions on rangelands, resilience and water, food systems, and soil health.
Held under the theme ‘Restoring Land, Restoring Hope,’ and running alongside the UN’s International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) 2026, COP17 is set to elevate rangelands and pastoralists on the global agenda.
Rangelands are natural and semi-natural ecosystems such as grasslands and savannas that are used for grazing livestock and wildlife and support pastoral livelihoods. These cover about half of the earth’s land surface, and provide one-sixth of global food supply and 70 per cent of livestock feed.
However, rangeland are disappearing fast: according to UN estimates, up to 50 per cent of these rangelands are degraded. Their loss is harder to track unlike forests, where deforestation is easier to see, while rangelands are converted and fragmented for agriculture, infrastructure and development.
The conference will bring together delegates from the UNCCD’s 197 Parties — 196 and the European Union — to advance global action on desertification, land degradation and drought.
“Restoring Land, Restoring Hope is not only an environmental agenda, but a development and resilience priority. As drought intensifies and land degradation accelerates, the conference must drive practical, investable solutions — from restoring degraded land and soils to strengthening the land–water nexus — so that communities can thrive,” said UNCCD Executive Secretary Yasmine Fouad.
At least 131 countries have pledged or are working towards achieving national Land Degradation Neutrality targets (no net loss of healthy or productive land) by 2030, to balance ongoing land degradation with restoration and sustainable land management.
A central focus at COP17 is expected to be around financing land restoration and drought resilience. According to UN, land degradation costs the global economy close to $900 billion annually, while drought generates at least $300 billion in losses each year.
At COP16 in Riyadh, the UNCCD’s first-ever Financial Needs Assessment put the annual financing gap for meeting global land restoration and drought resilience targets at $278 billion.
Countries require $355 billion annually to address desertification, land degradation and drought, yet current investment stands at only $77 billion per year, leaving an annual financing gap of $278 billion, UNCCD estimates showed.
Private sector finance accounts for just 6 per cent of current flows.
There is also likely to be continued focus on market mechanisms, such as insurance microfinance, as critical tools for drought resilience, building on discussions carried over from COP16.