COP17 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification opened in Ulaanbaatar with calls to turn land restoration pledges into finance and action.
The talks return to the unresolved question of a global drought framework, after countries failed to agree on a legally binding drought deal at COP16 in Riyadh.
Countries have pledged to restore about 1 billion hectares of degraded land, while the global degradation problem is estimated at 1.5 billion to 2 billion hectares.
Mongolia, the host country, says 77% of its land is affected by desertification and land degradation.
The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) opened in Mongolia on August 17, 2026 with one clear message from the host country, the convention’s secretariat and Saudi Arabia, the outgoing COP16 presidency: the world has enough declarations on land degradation. What it lacks is finance and the institutional machinery to act on them.
Hosted by Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar from August 17 to 28, 2026 under the theme Restoring Land, Restoring Hope, COP17 comes as droughts, wildfires and land degradation increasingly threaten food and water security, livelihoods and economic stability. The conference is being held in a year marked by a strong El Niño, with many regions facing worsening heat and dry conditions.
The most politically difficult issue before the conference is the global drought protocol left unresolved at COP16 in Riyadh, where countries failed to agree on a legally binding deal to tackle drought. Some parties, including the African Group, pushed for a binding protocol, while others favoured a non-binding drought framework.
Negotiations were pushed to COP17, making Ulaanbaatar the next test of whether governments can bridge the divisions that stalled the deal in Saudi Arabia.
Speaking at a press conference after the COP17 opening plenary on August 17, Yasmine Fouad, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UNCCD, described COP17 as the “COP of implementation” and urged parties to build consensus on the drought framework.
“…the role of COP17 presidency is to build consensus and facilitate discussion till a drought decision would be gavelled,” Fouad said, adding that the UNCCD secretariat hoped parties would reach an outcome that reflected both the urgency and scale of the drought crisis.
Fouad said the aim now was not only to secure a decision but to ensure it could be implemented, pointing to the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership, launched at COP16, as one mechanism through which countries could move from commitments to action.
The mechanism had received over $12 billion in pledges by the end of COP16.
The partnership is intended to help countries move from responding to drought after it strikes to building resilience before it hits, including through drought preparedness, early-warning systems and access to finance. But the challenge at COP17 will be to ensure that the pledges translate into projects and support reaching communities most vulnerable to drought.
That push for consensus found an echo among the regional blocs. Speaking on behalf of the Asia-Pacific Group in the opening plenary, India said the convention was meeting “at a moment when the world for which this convention was designed is changing faster than the systems established to protect it and restore it,” and called on COP17 to agree on a drought decision that could “secure an ambitious, balanced, practical and durable outcome that responds to the needs of all regions.”
The scale of the gap is stark. Countries have so far committed to restoring roughly 1 billion hectares of degraded land, against a global degradation problem now estimated at between 1.5 and 2 billion hectares. The range that itself reflects a data gap, since roughly 40 per cent of countries do not report their land degradation figures.
Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister for Environment and adviser to the outgoing COP16 presidency, Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha, said drought currently affects about 1.8 billion people, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income developing countries.In these countries, he said, drought impacts can quickly lead to food and water insecurity and disruption of livelihoods.
If the current rate of degradation continues, the area of degraded land could double by 2050, he warned.
“Today we are 8 billion people and by 2050 it is expected we will exceed 10 billion people. We have 2 billion hectares of degraded land or at least between 1.5 to 2 billion; the figures depend on reporting because 40 per cent of the countries are not reporting their land degradation.”
“The task is huge. We cannot continue business as usual,” Faqeeha said, calling for a shift towards sustainable land management and accelerated restoration.
The figures also highlight the financing gap confronting the convention. Fouad said the priority at COP17 was to accelerate implementation of the target to restore 1 billion hectares by 2030, while expanding access to finance through innovative mechanisms.
Mongolian Prime Minister Nyam-Osoryn Uchral used the opening plenary to press on parties to make implementation the central test of the conference. “…COP17 should not be a conference where we repeat previous decisions and declarations but rather accelerate implementation,” he said, arguing that the international community has never lacked goals and commitments, but now urgently needs resources, financing, technology and institutional environment needed to deliver them.
The UNCCD is therefore seeking to broaden the pool of actors involved in implementation, including private-sector investors, local communities, Indigenous peoples and civil society, while encouraging new financing mechanisms for land restoration and drought resilience.
The emphasis on finance was also reflected in the opening plenary, where the European Union said that redirecting existing finance can be as important as increasing it. The bloc called for work on future financing of the convention and the phasing out or repurposing of environmentally harmful subsidies contributing to drought, desertification and land degradation.
For Mongolia, the host country, the implementation challenge is particularly stark. Prime Minister Uchral said 77 per cent of Mongolia’s land is affected by desertification and land degradation, with encroaching sands increasingly affecting the country’s vast territory.
Meanwhile, the opening plenary also adopted the conference’s agenda, though not in full. Delegates approved the bulk of it, covering the convention’s strategic framework, the high-level segment, the budget for the next biennium and private-sector participation, while setting aside a handful of items — including the policy discussions that cover gender, migration, drought and rangelands, and the item on civil society participation — for further consultation among the parties concerned.
Those items are expected to come back before the plenary for adoption once consultations are complete.