Opening of Action Dome - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Especially with US deciding to close all the aids.
That was also very difficult situation and I think I was quite lucky that our manager at the time was very open to people like me from private sector who wanted to do something a little different.
I joined as a resource mobilization person.
My job was really trying to identify the innovators, the new waves of doing and some new solutions that I could turn into development program and then raise funds for it.
One of the success story was collaboration with the G 20 office that we are currently doing and My another main job was to make government to understand that for the development to happen, the government also must participate as an active agent and at the time now, especially as a donor.
We cannot be relying still on the external donors.
I believe for now, we have several projects and fast forward, we've done projects on AI, on the youth, on green transition.
We explored, it's called futures and foresight methodology in the development context.
So I To be honest, I wouldn't say I'm a professional in the true sense.
I'm just trying to gauge and what I hear it's very interesting, very nice novel, although we don't know what's going to happen, especially with the new technologies.
If you have great ideas, I'm always open to talk and discuss and test it.
When I joined, I was a part of the team called Accelerator Lab.
Work was to identify locally locally led solutions and to try to bring it to the global stage.
Here we are and I We can continue this work with other partners and to mention that I get to know the Mongolian youth startup quite well now and tomorrow we'll have a demo day Nomad tech challenge.
It will be hosted by the national university and together with the Fan lab and Geir other partners.
And at that challenge, young startups are presenting their solutions to combat desertification, so you all are welcome to join.
I think the solutions will be showcased at the green zone at 3:00 P.M.
To 4:00 P.M.
So most welcome there.
I really enjoy meeting all the young people.
Even the idea is only on the paper, we can do something to test.
Maybe something will work out.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you.
I've got two questions for doctor Morelli.
From your perspective, what would need to happen at Cp 17 for us to look back five years later and say that the conference genuinely changed the trajectory of land immigration and drought resilience, not just in Mongolia, but globally.
I couldn't, you can hear it.
Do you want me to speak louder? Okay.
That's better.
From your perspective, what would need to happen at Cop 17 for us to look back five years later and say that the conference generally changed the trajectory of land degradation and drought resilience, not just Mongolia, but globally.
Thank you.
When UNCCD was conceived and formed in the 1990s, it was considered essentially a decertification convention.
If you look at the full title, it says, in particular, reference to Africa or something.
It is considered a decertification and African type of convention.
But right now if you look at Europe, there's a drought ongoing and there is a forest fire ongoing.
The importance of this convention now is fully understood globally, much more than when it was conceived.
Now we have 197 parties here in Mongolia.
We are hoping that the countries would come together on these topics of land degradation, on the question of drought and desertification, but also on things like new technology.
Very strong decisions will come on, let's say the use of modern technologies for drought management, which is what our friends in the International drought resilience Organization is trying to do.
Very strong resolution come on land restoration, asserting implementation of the existing commitment, then you will see that five years down the line, Things will start to improve and by 2030, at least the land detion neutrality commitments will be met.
That would be what I'll be looking forward to.
Some strong decision on land restoration and technology.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The second question is, how can the outcomes of CP 17 be monitored after the conference to ensure that the commitments are actually implemented? Is again another very challenging question.
Within the Secretariat, which UN CCD, we have a system to monitor.
But this monitoring is done essentially by the country's self reporting to the UN.
We don't go proactively to a country and say, Okay, you promised to restore 50 million hects of land, but you only restored 10 million hectas.
We don't do it.
We ask those countries to come and tell us that we committed X million hectas and we have restored a certain amount.
This is done once every four years.
Unfortunately, this is not very good news.
Since this year, we will be publishing a report this Saturday jointly with the International Union for Conservation Nature, we'll say something which is not very nice.
Since 2010, there has been a number of international processes, such as the bond challenge, such as the UNCCD process, such as the CBD process, such as the UNF C process.
All of them have been committing to restore land.
If you look at all of those commitments globally, we have 1.2 billion hectas people are committed to.
But if you actually look at what they have achieved, it's not very good.
Many of these conventions, the achievement is less than 10% of what is committed.
While yes, it is being monitored, the results are not very hopeful and that's why I said we need more commitment as well as better implementation of those commitment, and we are constantly working with the member state or parties to achieve that.
Thank you.
We can take one last question.
I'm just wonder we are talking about certification, and what is the most important action in everyday life? What is the important action in human in ordinary people? Now this is one question which I kept asking my experts that when I meet young people for climate change, we can always say usage of the light or you recycle something.
But on land restoration, what can someone do on a day to day basis? It's not a very easy answer for this.
One of the thing which I have been advocating to young people is the following.
That I grew up in a village in India and land, I was living in a house which is on the land.
I was drinking water from well, which was on my land.
We are farming in the land.
Medicine was what all the herbs, which was on the land.
We were playing on the land.
If land was degraded, it was very immediate and obvious to us.
So it mattered.
But now I live in Germany.
I live in an apartment building, so no connection to ground.
My office building is on the 20th floor, again, no connection to ground.
My water come in a pipe, tap, no connection.
My medicine is in a pharmacy, my food is in a supermarket.
So really I have no connection to the land.
What we have been trying to do is to get young people reconnect to the land, at least understand how their consumption of everything, of food, of medicine, of clothes, of fashion, they're all connected to land.
If you could at least start to understand that and propagate that understanding, we are crossing one hurdle to start those actions.
Thank you.
She'll be there.
We can take more questions.
We have some more time for questions.
So you mentioned this is one of the few Ms that is looking at land and land restoration.
So I want to know, are there certain regions you prioritize for land restoration in order to ensure food security? Yes.
Thank you.
So as Elena mentioned, we have 197 parties to the convention, and 120 of them actually have all countries have land issues.
They are different.
The issue in Malaysia is very different from what is in Saudi Arabia.
And 120 of those countries have made explicit commitment to do land restoration.
And we have compelled those commitment.
And G 20 among them, of course, are critical.
Now if you take only ten of those countries of the 197 countries of which 120 have made commitment, between the ten countries, you already reached 50% of all the commitment for land restoration.
And these are countries such as India, China, Brazil, United States.
These are the countries where land degradation is directly having an impact on food security issues.
Globally, there is about 4.8 billion hectas of agricultural land.
People say about 25% of that is degraded.
But that's also spread across the world.
But if you take this 197, if you look at about 40 countries, then you essentially capture 90% of all those interface where land degradation and food security are mapped.
We actually have that information with us.
My colleague, Dev three who is there, if you could raise your hand.
They actually have developed a full program on resilience to agriculture and please connect with her after this session.
Thank you.
Hi.
First of all, thank you all for your sharings.
My question is for both of you actually for the younger generations in order to raising an awareness about this situation.
How can we connect it with education? What can we do about them? Thank you.
Yes.
Maybe I'll start because I'm doing something specific and then I'll pass up there.
It's also connected to what I mentioned to her, that what I realized is that, as I mentioned, my life was integrally connected to nature.
I didn't have to be taught on this at all.
But now that's not the case.
More than 50% of global population is living in cities where most of the people are not connected to land.
Even those who are living in the rural areas, young generation is not as connected to the land as before.
I once read a survey from Australia, which is a predominantly agricultural country and a significant population of the people there actually thought wool came from a tree because they were not seeing the connection.
So what we have planned is a program called Nature Labs.
Where our dream is that in school in every country, a corner plot of the school is created into a laboratory, just like a physics or chemistry laboratory inside the classroom.
The nature, the children would observe the forces of nature, biodiversity, everything about extreme events, everything about invasive species so that children start to understand how life is connected to nature.
That's number one.
Number two, We have many professions.
Not all professions are linked to land, but many professions are.
Number one, agriculture, 4.8 billion hectas of land is connected to agriculture.
What we did is to develop a training program for restoring agricultural land.
We worked with 20 universities around the world and developed a global curriculum.
We made it open to all agricultural universities in the world and more than 1,200 universities have already picked up that curriculum.
We gave training to more than 300 universities, faculty members on a TOT train the trainer program.
As of now, more than 400 universities have actually started teaching those in the agricultural universities.
Based upon that success, we picked up urban planning as a second issue because urban land degradation is another issue.
We followed the same model.
We developed a global curriculum, made it available free, and now we already have more than 300 universities who are working on it.
I think there is a session on 19th at 4:00 where we are talking about all these massive it's not massive open online courses.
This is a university curriculum's called trigger change program.
Right now we are working on a massive open online program where people outside the university can also have access to this information.
This will be launched end of this year.
Again, there's another session on Apoorva would know that session on Thursday, I think, where we are launching that program.
Yes, it's absolutely necessary that the land issue is integrated into education.
Thank you.
If I may just quickly add from the Mongolia perspective, as I mentioned, we hosted the model Cp 17 for high schools, whereby also 13 teachers from different provinces attended and we've developed a teacher's manual for them to take back to the provinces and host the same sessions for their students.
We believe this format of Model UN model Cp 17 actively engages young people and especially it's good to start from the high school ages to encourage them that in the future, this is also the way we need to participate as a young people can participate for the land issues.
Thank you.
I think we will keep going for another 10 minutes or so, tabs rat, suran tonic orange button, Z mark, which, at sutra, attach which you see here, garb, sandwich here, manga salt to abab is the baseline based research.
Yeah.
Yes.
Thank you.
You have raised two separate issues.
One is the reduction of interest of young population in basic sciences, be it physics, chemistry, biology.
Mathematics suddenly is starting to pick up because of artificial intelligence, but also it was a challenge.
The second question you're asking us about how do we find more resources for research in this topic.
The first part is actually very challenging, I must admit, because this is not only in Mongolia, across the world, young people are essentially using education as a means to get an employment.
If basic research education will not lead to decent jobs, naturally children will not go for that topic.
And okay.
So I will have to stop for a minute because our executive secretary is coming, but he'll continue with this one.
Okay.
Thank you.
Ba.
Choice.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the action dome.
We are going to take you through why we're here and what treats you are going to be in store for over the next two weeks.
But first off, just to go through a little bit of housekeeping and health and safety is the gentleman behind this wonderful building, this Gare.
I'm going to hand it over to our very own doctor in the house, really, you haven't left the stage.
Just to go through some basics before we start our program.
Thank you.
Thank you for sake of full transparency.
I'm not a medical doctor, but, um, Before I joined the United Nations, I used to work for Shell International and we started no meeting without a safety briefing.
Some of you have already listened to my safety briefing, but no harm in hearing that again.
This is a newly constructed temporary building and we do not expect any major challenge here.
But in case we evacuate this building, we have three and exits, two on this side, one on this side.
In case for any reason this part is blocked, we can get out through this, we go into the open area.
However, I don't expect that Problem here.
We hope to continue the meeting with any disruption.
However, the more likely safety disruption here is that you could trip as you are coming into the podium or going back.
There are all sort of wires going around, so there's a slipping and tripping hazard there.
There are some hot water that's an issue.
So please be mindful of all these situation.
The entrance on the left, they have a carpet, which is a little bit of tripping hazard as well.
We have a first aid kit available here just in case you have a problem.
We have people who are trained in first aid.
We will look after you just in case you have any difficulty.
With this brief safety briefing, I'll hand it back to Lupez.
Thank you.
Roy, thank you very much indeed.
A very warm welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
I want you all to take a little look around where we are today.
I don't know what struck you first about this beautiful building, but we are in a traditional Mongolian homestead building.
It's known as a G and we're going to find out how this happened to be at Cop 17 a little bit later on in the program.
This is the action dome.
This is your dome.
This is your space.
We want you to use it.
You are going to be treated.
We have got so much on the program for you and we're going to hear about some of that from the executive secretary later.
She has got the highlights set for you.
This, for the next two weeks is where it's all going down.
I'm just going to tell you that.
It's called the action dome for a reason.
My name is Lus Bak.
I am an international news anchor with BBC, with TRT World, and formerly with Sky News and Al Jazeera.
It's my absolute pleasure to be here and be part of the opening of this pavilion.
Where are we? We are on the edge of the Mongolian step, beneath Mongolia's eternal blue sky, as it's known.
Now, this is a landscape that is no stranger to the die.
We have herders.
They've been here for over 3,000 years.
And today, Mongolia sits on the front line of one of our most defining challenges of our time.
I've heard varying statistics.
Yesterday, I heard 72%.
I've heard 77%, and today.
Secretary-General of Ramsa, I heard over 80% of Mongolian land is degraded.
That's really worrying.
2023, 2024, there was a brutal winter and that followed a summer drought.
It killed more than 7 million livestock here in Mongolia alone.
You begin to understand why Cop 17 is the perfect place for us to be here this year.
Also, it's the first host from East and Central Asia.
I think that deserves a round of applause, please.
So Mongolia isn't arriving empty handed.
I mean, they've already been planting trees, 1 billion trees by 2030 is the target.
They have mobilized their youth.
On our way over here, we were discussing just how engaged the country is with Cop 17, and we were genuinely shocked, particularly the youth.
They are fully engaged in why and what is taking place at the moment.
This year, we have a theme.
It's not about decoration.
Oh.
This is about instruction, implementation.
I heard the executive secretary mention yesterday.
We're done with the promises.
It's actually about doing the hard work on the ground.
That is going to be a flavor of just some of the events that will be taking place here in the action dome.
We all know why the UN CCD matters.
It is the only legally binding agreement that links environment and development to sustainable land management.
20 months ago, if you were in Rad with us, you know that this was the largest cop in history for this convention.
They pledged over $12 billion through the New Rad Global drought resistance Partnership, and it was there that we formally recognized rangelands for the first time.
It's Mongolia that is carrying that momentum forward.
So the action dome basically is a shared home.
There are three forces that are working in this venue.
You have the UN CCD's own program, high level dialogues, technical sessions, you have the G 20 Global and Initiative.
And that speaks for the world's largest economies.
We're talking some 85% of global GDP.
In 2020, it turned the weight around, and we're now backing 1.3 billion hectas and that's been pledged worldwide, and of course, the International Drought Resilience Alliance, founded by Spain and Senegal, doing the work of drought resilience before drought hits, not after.
What I want to say is, I am going to introduce our guest honorable speaker today.
Before I do that, ladies and gentlemen, just look around the room again because it's here that we are going to have action.
Over the next two weeks.
It is my genuine pleasure and my personal privilege to invite to the stage, she's on the stage, but to speak to us a leader opening her very first Cp at the helm of this convention.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Executive Secretary of the UN CCD, doctor Yasmin Fad.
Thank you.
Thank you, moderator.
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to the action dome of Cp 17 here in Alamatar in Mongolia.
At the outset, I'd like really to thank each and everyone who made this happen.
Let's start with my dear sister and colleague Andrea Meza, the Deputy Executive Secretary.
She wished to be with us here today, but thanks to her and to her team, Gabriel Sandrine and everyone for making this happen and for liaising tirelessly with doctor Morale and the team from the G 20, as well as the logistic team from the UNCCD.
This was not an easy job to be done, by the way, because of I'd say first, the weather in Mongolia was not that friendly starting from April.
So in order to do all that job, it's really very hectic and to make it happen with all those details and we apologize for the weather here, but we want really to transfer for you how does it look like if you live in a Mongolian house.
I lived there last July.
I had the opportunity to meet herder family and to learn from them a lot.
I had a wonderful lunch there and a wonderful beverage and in that part, I want to say something because it relates to what we are going to discuss in the next two weeks.
I found sustainability at the very heart of nature.
I found renewable energy just beside the house.
I found reusing the milk of the cow and the sheep to make a wonderful kind of cheese.
I found the space where you can collect the empty bottles for recycling.
I've found a house that has its own normal fertilation without even needing the fans like the ones that we're using here because of the weather.
But I found something much more important than what I'm saying here.
I've found reality.
I've found real people who believe that in every day they go after a sheep or after a cow, they make their life better.
By the way, those herds and pastoralists are very well educated.
They have their own PhD, their own masters and they know how nature is giving them and they are truly, truly respecting nature, and that's why nature can still continue to give them every day a source for their livelihood, although that the global environment is all against them.
So for the sake of those hurdles and pastoralists and for the sake of this action dome, that each day will find different solutions, different actors, and different pathways.
We need to make that happen.
We need to spread that word and to believe that each one of us with just one small action that he and she can take in their own environment will make a difference, will be able to restore land, and in doing so, you are restoring livelihood.
You are restoring an ecosystem for your children and grandchildren, but much more than this, you're building economies and you're providing a venue that would avoid conflict, that would avoid war.
Because when land degrades, people become very much vulnerable and when people become vulnerable, they start fighting over the natural resources, and this is where they start leaving their own land.
That all of what I have been talking about from politics and security and war and livelihood and sustainability and actions will be discussed in this place because that's your place that we would like you to continue coming to and trying to see an added value here.
I'd like to thank Sengal and Spain because they are the co chairs of Idra for having this beautiful part behind that wall, you can find a lot around our world.
You can find IR, the International Drought Resilient Observatory.
You would find each piece of the world.
How is it facing drought? You can find your own home.
You can find the home of your parents, and you can find the home of your grandparents.
And from that, you need to get more inspired on what kind of actions that you can still do.
And in this part is the part that we would like to rely on the G 20.
The G 20 with all their experiences and with their knowledge.
Can they bring to us south to south cooperation? Can we replicate an upscale from the G 20, from different countries around the world, from China, from Turkey, from the US, from other European countries? Can they bring that to us? And the list is long.
What we want to say here is that together from the very simple map that can tell us what's happening, to the different categories of people in this, to the different action of just planting a tree or even don't take the flower out of its place.
To the G 20 countries where their big GTP, this is what we want to say in this action dome.
Together, we will make that CP successful.
I trust in you This is open, this is your home.
Think of it of whatever you want to do.
We are there.
We're going to support you.
We're going to help you.
The team of the UN CCD, the G 20, the dra, the Idru and those who has been tirelessly working on each and every single concept note.
I saw those people.
They did that even on stage when I'm not having my speech that I'm writing.
They did that with love.
They did that because Secretariat, although they're very small in size, they believe in what they're doing.
So do not let us go back home because that's our place and feel that we're regretting anything.
We want to feel so proud for the next two years until we see you again in the action dome in Cp 18.
Thank you very much.
Doctor Farr, thank you very much indeed.
Before you sit down, you have the pleasure of formally opening the pavilion.
We have the ribbon cutting.
Let me just lift that up.
Okay.
Can I ask the team who made this happen, Gabriel and the team of the UN CCD, all the UN CCD team to come here onstage because I'm not cut without you.
So all the team that is in the UN CCD would come here onstage.
Daniella? If you could just allow us this moment, it's been a lot of work.
We just want to honor all of the UN CCD staff that are here in the action dome with us.
They have been working weekends, I'm sure, 24 hours as well sometimes.
So let us mark this moment.
Bravo.
Thank you very much indeed.
I'm just very quickly going to I'm going to give you my microphone as well.
Thank you.
As the executive secretary mentioned, all of us work together on this, but there is one person whom I want to acknowledge that Daniella, please, if you could come back to the stage, she's the one who design was created by.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, your action dome is formally open.
We expect to see you here over the two weeks.
We have a fashion show.
We have an awards night.
We have a photography exhibition plus an award for that.
That is on Thursday evening, is that correct? So please make sure you're here for that to enjoy it.
So much more taking place.
We have celebrations.
We have some technical discussions as well.
And please come and join us for some yoga sessions every day.
We care, one of our main priorities.
He is a doctor, is the wellness and we all know how frantic cops can be.
If you just want some downtime, just come along and we've got daily, is it always yoga morally? It's always some version of yoga, but not the same thing every day.
So, with those words, I think we are declaring this open.
We have our photography exhibition right behind this and we have the International Route Resilience Observatory on the other side.
Please spend your time going to those places.
Come back every day from morning about 9:00 A.M.
To 6:30 P.M.
Back to back events, the fashion show next week.
So looking forward to all those.
Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, Willy.
Thank you very much and congratulations.
Thank you.
I was just completing one answer to my colleague here.
I would complete that answer.
The question was, why is that young people are not going to basic sciences anymore? Why they go only for applied science engineering management? In addition to my work in the UN, I also work with the young people and this is a question is happening across the world, not just in Mongolia.
Unless the basic science degrees can lead to employment opportunities, clearly, young people are not going to come and nor can we force young people to come to that area.
The more important thing is that we generate modern industry which would need people with biology, for example, biotechnology.
Right.
A country like Ireland has now become a global powerhouse, a global economy, partly also because they invest in biotechnology.
Clearly, the basic biology has to shift into this type of application such as biotechnology, which has tremendous economic potential and therefore that will force, not force, convince young people to come to that area.
The same go for fundraising as well.
The basic biology is very difficult to raise fund anymore.
You have to get into more things like gene work, genetic work, biotechnology work if you are to attract funding to the biological sciences.
This is how many universities are generating resources, and then of course, they use it for other basic sciences.
Thank you.
I think that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you all for coming.
I look forward to seeing you again and again tomorrow after, et cetera, many of you and we'll be here for the next two weeks.
Please come over and visit our exhibitions.
Come and enjoy there may be a coffee somewhere.
I think they're setting up something, so please have a coffee and see you on.
Bye bye.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.