Official Launch of the Drought Resilience Investment Facility (DRIF): Accelerating Finance for Drought Resilience, Water Security and Land Restoration - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Your Excellency's distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to Water day here at Cp 17 and to the official launch of the Drought Resilience Investment Facility DRF.
We are gathered here today because drought is costing us more and more economically, environmentally, and of course, humanly.
Drought is one of the world's most pervasive and costly natural hazards.
And yet, when it comes to finance, our response remains overwhelmingly reactive.
Too often, capital arrives after the rains have failed.
A crops have been lost and after water systems have come under pressure, after livelihoods have been affected.
We spent enormous amounts responding to drought as a crisis while investing far too little in resilience before the crisis happens, and that is the paradigm DRF is designed to change.
The drought resilience Investment facility is an innovative blended finance vehicle dedicated specifically to drought resilience.
Its ambition is to mobilize concessional and private capital across three areas that are deeply interconnected.
Water infrastructure, sustainable and climate resilient agriculture, and land restoration and nature based solutions.
But perhaps, most importantly, it's about changing the way We think about rough itself from an emergency respond to to a risk we can anticipate, manage, and invest against.
And today is an important step in that direction.
This morning, you will hear commitments and perspectives from governments, development finance institutions, and international partners and we will explore progress.
Re established route resilience as an investment theme in its own right.
This initiative has benefited from the long standing leadership of the government of Luxembourg a pioneer in sustainable and impact finance and co host of today's launch.
It is therefore my great pleasure to begin by welcoming Her Excellency Martin Schumer, special envoy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Martin, welcome.
Thank you very much, Excellencies, France.
Madame Madame secret executive, Chair colleague, Madame necess resilience increase.
Paul Luxembourg, Luxembourg UNC CD, a partner, the land degradation neutrality fund, the LDN fund.
Ares ambassadors function, the bone structure, the capital P service objectives.
Are LDN fund, sector al initiative, the developer, and for us So our fund is very catalytic.
With this past experience, that's how we started the drift.
20 years, we were contacted with one question, can we apply the same logic to the reion to fight fraud? Can we drift? Can we change our funding paradigm and we have decided to give it a goal.
We with our partners.
In September last year with UNCCD, we have signed an agreement establishing our drought resilience investment facility.
We have brought 2 million euros to set up the fund so that the fund become can be materialized, then the fund has become true investment.
They were thrift.
With the L fund has become our platform small unpacked association capital investments and to mobilize more private and public partnerships, we have used this fund to increase our drought resilience.
And we need to make sure that all the community faced with the drought have all investment and resource resces to enhance the capacity to fight the drought.
This is not an isolated initiative.
We have concrete actions as part of our global partnership with private sector and we can therefore mobilize more investment to fight against drought so there will drift in our public and private sector.
We can together restore land as well as nature based solutions in different areas.
All these areas together reinforce our drought resilience.
We have invested in the companies with a viable business plan, and we have invested therefore in ecosystem with environmental, financial, and social outcomes.
Today, we have therefore crossed another important step, and we have translated our concept into a tangible investments.
The drift will have its true identity.
We are therefore particularly delighted for the first time to unveil this facility, our drought resilience investment facility.
This new logo is not just a new visual identity, our collective concept with UNCCD now becomes a a real initiative that will unite more investors, more actors, and philanthroropic actors as well as other actors Luxeenburg.
We have been part of this facility, and we are happy to welcome more facilities present in this room.
And therefore We need to provide more investment opportunities for others.
Together, we can invest more capital into fighting against drought.
We can provide $400 million and do this to achieve our ambition, we want to show that there is a market.
This project is worth investing and other funding will follow up.
That's why our drift will become a cooperation platform.
The countries can bring their own contribution while developing other technical partnerships.
And invest in their own national priorities, our initiative is ready to make a new step with our fund, our Luxembourg UCCD and partnership.
We have mobilized more private funding.
The market is not ready.
Today we drift.
We have made a new step, and we invite you to make this new step together with us.
Thank you.
And to widen the shift towards proactive route resilience, it's my pleasure to welcome to the stage, doctor Yasmin Fuer Executive Secretary at UNCCD.
Good afternoon.
First of all, Madame Martin Ter, the special envoy to Luxembourg.
It's a pleasure to have you here.
And Your Excellency, Barbara Apali, thank you for being with us, but I would have to greet really Luxembourg and France, especially for being with us here today, maybe on different Perhaps, first of all, thanks to France for leading on the G seven.
Thanks for putting drought on the agenda.
We do appreciate the effort that you have conducted throughout the first half of this year during the France presidency to the G seven in linking land degradation, drought, and security, and how that was perceived within the G seven group as drought is a risk multiplier to stability and to displacement.
And from that perspective, I'd like to convert to Luxemburg, Thank you for putting not only the investment facility on drought into activation, but in believing that this is something that we will need to step in before the crisis happened because it is very simple.
The more we react, the more we will be paying.
The more we will be proactive, the more or the less we will be paying to the crisis.
And this is exactly what happened when a drought is placed within a certain community.
When drought or land is degraded, people become more vulnerable.
Once they become more vulnerable, they lose their jobs, their livelihood becomes less sustainable, and for that reason, they face conflict and be less safe and secure.
So the topic of drought today and the investment facility, from my perspective, goes beyond than just a pipeline of bankable projects where the private sector can invest, where Luxembourg can be the capital, and we have a revenue.
It's a story in 2026 matches what happens around the world in different corners.
Maybe we now have the chance and the opportunity to take the action right now before it touches each and every corner of the world.
A very good example is the continent where I'm coming from from the Sahel and what is happening there since long time ago when we said land degradation and drought had caused conflict over the natural resources.
We pitched in on the Great Green Wall with the accelerator for Southern Africa, and now it is touching other places around the world.
We are based in Germany, so thanks to the government of Germany for hosting us the Secretariat.
But we witnessed this summer what El Nino had told us in February, witnessed the most heatwave ever.
With less water and drought, and we can see that along the Rhine River from the window of where the Secretariat is based.
And for that reason, I think that three things should be connected when we are launching that drift or investment facility.
Number one, collectively to raise the awareness of the public that this is happening, intensifying, more costly and prolonged and what actions could be done and how best can we educate the next generation on that.
Secondly, is to pack catch what we are doing with the private sector, with the public finance and other non market instrument.
And we promised when we started that in October when I was in Luxeburg with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance, that we would like to see that moving within the multilateral process.
So the private sector draft decision that is in front of the parties is something that we are pushing the bar.
We are testing and piloting new innovative financial mechanisms, including the non market mechanisms and how can that be implemented at the national level.
And the third part which would complete that piece is a drought decision.
On the water day in Ambatar, a country that has been suffering from land degradation and drought reaching 77% of its land being degraded, we had put water as a main day and put drought on that part.
What we would like to see with the means of implementation because rift part of that is a decision.
Again, I've mentioned that in the opening.
DRF is part of the instruments that we're having.
We have the Rio Global DRA Partnership.
Before that, we had IDRA from Spain and Singal where we were talking about advocacy, policy, and technical assistance, and now we have IDR, which is just around the other side of this room where we have really an observatory system at the national level to tell you where to invest and how to invest, and then going to the DRF to get the private sector and the RGTRP to get the public finance and convert your draft management plan into real pipeline on the ground.
This is how we would like as a CCD to be convened.
We're not competing with any partners.
We're not stepping on the toes of anyone.
We're trying to make sense of a multilateral system that will continue to serve the people on the ground that are most vulnerable.
Thank you all very much.
Many thanks, doctor Fouad.
The G seven endorsement of DIF is essential, indeed, next, we are delighted and honored to welcome Her Excellency, Margar Compili, who's former Minister for Ecological Transition, biodiversity, and International Negotiations on climate and nature of France.
Welcome, Minister.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Mechanism, resilience, the toothless activity.
Sentiment economic is com, Pascal No Lala But Europe is also confronted with drought without precedents.
That is why we need to collective act together.
Other continents have already been confronted with a drought and Europe now unfortunately also joins this club of drought.
While our land is also man is threatened, it also threatens our population, our economy, and also intensifies the competition of land use.
That is why we need to create account conditions which will lead to population displacement, displacement, and migration.
That is why France has also linked security and France is the G seven presidency with our ministries.
And in close collaboration with UN CCD, and the fight against drought and restoring land of strategic importance with us and especially for peace, and we need to mobilize.
We need to act.
We need to private and public funding at large scale and international financial institution and multilateral development fund and we also need to work together to catalyze more funding, especially with the private sector.
It is also important and not just to react to crisis, we now need to take more anticipatory actions.
And this has already been pointed out throughout they need to be systematically taken into consideration in our policy when we think about development because drought is often, unfortunately, underestimated by many.
And we have other Internet and environmental fund.
They have also made a contribution, and G seven also recognized our blend funding is very important.
We need innovative approaches can can mobilize the funding we need at large scale to fight against drought so as to ensure prosperity and peace.
We need to policies, global policies, holistic global policies, taking into consideration all different factors leading to drought so as to react efficiently.
We call on all countries to act.
When multilateralism is often questioned, we call all countries to act in a proactive way, bring concrete solutions and to ensure this ecologic transition, you can count on France.
We will support this agenda, this objective.
Thank you.
Thank you, once again, everybody who has launched this initiative.
Thank you to UCCD and Luxembourg.
For being with us here today.
So we have the international momentum.
We have the ambition.
But ultimately, a financing vehicle only matters if it can mobilize capital and translate that capital into action on the ground.
And that brings us to the central conversation of this launch.
Next, I am delighted to welcome five leaders representing government and some of the world's major international financial institutions.
So please join me in welcoming Her Excellency Evelyn Enovu, Minister of Environment, Climate and Wildlife of Zimbabwe.
Under a round of applause, please, ladies and gentlemen.
His Excellency, Timmy Dooley, Minister of State with special responsibility for the Marine of Ireland.
Welcome.
Constance Neer who's Director of Bubble Issues and Trans poverty and Inequality, governance at Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Welcome, Constance.
We also welcome Gel Samina Vigliotti, Vice President of the European Investment Bank and U Apple, Senior Environmental Specialist at the Global Environment Facility.
So welcome to all five of you.
So we only have 30 minutes, so let's use them to answer one key question.
Why is a mechanism like Drift needed now and what role can it play in translating the growing ambition on dot resilience into investment and action on the ground? And I'd like to approach this question from your very different perspectives here.
So Minister, let me begin with you.
Ultimately, drought resilience isn't an abstract investment category for drought affected countries, it's about water, agriculture, food security, livelihoods, and economic resilience.
So your perspective, why do we need a mechanism like now? I would like to thank you very much for inviting me to this forum so that we can discuss and share experiences on issues to do with finance blended financing.
In Zimbabwe, allow me to thank you and thank the government of Mongolia for convening this very important information sharing platform.
Zimbabwe fully aligns itself with the paradigm shift marked by the launch of this drought resilient facility.
For countries like Zimbabwe, drought is very common and severe.
We look back in 1920 2023 to 2024, where we lost a lot of animals.
Our ca decimated.
Our people were very desperate and we had to come up with solutions and invite the private sector to participate in our financing system.
C to this, we we identified needs of our people.
And trying to look at how best the Minister of Finance working with us as the Ministry of Environment, to come up with the solution that the Minister of Finance could not come up on its own.
So we are that we are invited here to come and share our experiences.
In addressing this Zimbabwe is collaborating with the United Nations Convention to combat desation to develop our own national drought Investment plan.
That is the key.
We have investment plan in place that we want to develop.
We also have got other plans on mitigation plans in terms of focusing the weather to see if it's possible for us to mitigate before the drought hits us.
So those are the plans that we have in place as a country to try and see how best we can as a whole of government, we can integrate responsibility and share responsibilities on financing, on agriculture, on gender protection of our people, gender issues, and on water.
Water is becoming a difficult issue in our country because of the drought, especially the underground water is diminishing.
So in our land degradation neutrality targets, we have tied these targets to the national economic development to make sure that we address the disaster that is almost bringing poverty to our people.
Our experience demonstrate that while a drought resilient facility is indispensable countries have to come up with funding to complement what we've just launched today.
We have to some countries that have got their own resources should complement to make sure that we build this facility to the tune where most drought stricken countries like the Southern Africa can take this money to supplement their treasury budgetary support that they are getting.
We have identified projects, and this is our first step.
And then we collectively look at these viable projects within the country.
And those projects will then attract financing because they are viable.
So this is another risk area where we are working with the Ministry of Finance to make sure that we come up with these viable projects so that we can see the risk Yeah.
In this financing system, we have to share the risk.
The private sector comes in, development partners come in, and the government itself comes in with some funds to make sure that we've got this blended facility source of need.
Thank you very much, Minister.
Fighting drought is indeed a shared responsibility.
I am turning to you next, Minister Dooley, because Ireland obviously faces a very different environmental context to Zimbabwe and yet water security and resilience are increasingly becoming strategic concerns everywhere.
The French ambassador mentioned what happens in Europe over the summer.
Why should drought resilience be treated as a global investment issue rather than simply a challenge for the world's driestt countries? Yeah, thanks very much, Charlotte.
Could I recognize my French colleague who has set out their agenda very clearly and to thank our friends from Luxeburg and Absa in particular for the initiative that you have undertaken here and that's really important.
I think at the outset, Charlotte, you asked the question, but first of all, why now? We can see that drought and land degradation is increasing very significantly.
It's driven by climate change.
There's still a few climate change deniers out there.
But I think when you look at what's happening over the last number of years and the intensity of it, and as the French colleague talked about it, what's happening in Europe, I think it has taken a resonance now that people recognize, we've got to do something about it.
The Earth is warming, it's impacting on land and on the seas.
And yes, it's an environmental challenge.
We talk about climate change, but we need to move beyond that.
Now, we need to look at how do we mitigate that? Yes, we're trying to reduce the increase in temperature.
That's not going to be enough.
It's not going to be enough at all.
So what's the impact of all of that then on areas that we'll talk about in the Sub Saharan African continent and indeed other areas? It's impacting on food insecurity.
It's creating hunger and famine.
And unfortunately, for a country like Ireland who we like to pride ourselves in the work that we have done with the developing nations and the approach we have taken to that, we're seeing a reversal of the gains that were made there.
So why then to your sort of second point, why then is this becoming an issue in countries that are not directly affected? Well, it is having an effect.
It's having an effect in terms of migration.
We're seeing very significant issues at European level of people migrating because of hunger or the fear of hunger, because of the loss of arable land as a result of that.
So of course, at the core of that then is how we address that from a point of view of mitigation, and addressing the drought issue is the most fundamental part of that.
And we've got to do that in a way that looks at it from a point of view of not just addressing it as a crisis when it happens, we've got to get in advance of that.
We've got to fight to ensure that we have the appropriate systems in place, that we have the water infrastructure in place, and we have systems about ensuring That the degradation doesn't happen at the rate that it's happening.
We've had a long history, as I said, from an Irish perspective in working with partners in Sub Saharan Africa, addressing hunger and food and nutrition security.
And we see at firsthand, as I said, the loss that has taken place.
So the undermining of the development that had already taken place, and drought really is at the core of that.
And it's not, as I said, just about environmental hazard or a challenge.
It's an existential crisis for those communities.
Crops are failing, livestock are being lost, and we're pushing communities into poverty.
And I suppose climate is compounding vulnerabilities that already existed there.
So then to the secondary point about why are we doing this at all? Well, if we believe as we do in addressing this crisis or this challenge, we need money to do it.
And I think what DIF is doing is investing as it is in drought resilience before it becomes the crisis, before it becomes an existential crisis.
And we're investing in resilient agriculture.
We're investing in sustainable land management and that water infrastructure, which is such an important component of ensuring that we can have land that's capable of providing for its citizens.
So, the other thing that we need to work on as well is access to climate information and technologies to assist farmers and communities in addressing this new challenge.
What I really like about if it's bringing together public and private.
It's that platform that you talk about.
It's bringing together public and private sources of finance because the scale of the problem is so great and so broad.
No one institution can fund it on its own.
No one institution is going to be able to address the death and birth.
You're reaching for your microphone, which would indicate to me that you want me to talk.
This is a subject that we could talk at length about, but I'll give way to your next speaker.
But we are going to pursue the or the issue or the challenge of finding the right financing tools to find resilience.
Thank you, Minister for that and yes indeed is body language four.
We need to speed up because we're running out of time.
But thank you for the points you have raised.
This conversation is indeed going to get a little bit more technical now with you constants because Germany is one of the world's major providers of development finance.
And water and food security are among BM Z's current priorities, and one of the promises of blended finance is that scarce public or concessional money can be used strategically to make projects investable for others that how you scale it, right? So where can concessional finances have the greatest catalytic effect in drought resilience and what risk should public money absorb so that private money can come in? Thank you so much.
Just allow me roughly to pick up what Excellency from France and the Executive Secretary Esmond witnessed this summer in Germany because I really think that it illustrates very well what it means that we have to step in before crises happen.
Just to illustrate, Germany's most important river, Rhine, which borders six European countries is currently facing record low water levels, and this disrupts one of Germany's most important transport routes as ships navigate with significantly reduced capacity and potentially puts drinking water provision for up to 30 million people at risk.
The European Central Bank recently warned that the Eurozone economy is not drought proof.
And according to the bank's research, surface water scarcity alone could put nearly 15% of the Euro Zone's economic output at risk in the event of extreme droughts.
I just wanted to pick up this issue because I want to underline why it is so important and why we have a window to fully support the coordinated efforts of the UNCCD to address droughts and why Germany supports many countries in Africa and in Asia, strengthening their long term drought resilience.
Land and water are the building blocks for drought resilient and cannot be addressed separately.
Against this backdrop, the cops of the UNCCD, the CBD, and the UNF C, and additionally, I want to mention the UN Water Conference are important political milestones this year, and we have to use this window that is given.
Germany is strongly committed.
Cooperation and investments are key themes for turning drought resilience from ambitions into action.
So Germany really commends the UNCCD global mechanism and the government of Luxembourg for establishing the drought resilient investment facility.
We particularly welcome the cross cutting nature of the drift investment themes across the land water nexus and we have heard about it.
I don't have to repeat them.
And the emerging landscape of blending finance funds proof that innovative finance can mobilize private investment and deliver impact on the ground.
Let me just showcase this with one successful example with the ecobss Fund initiated in 2014 by Germany.
Building on its success in Latin America, the fund was expanded to Africa in 2019 and has provided more than four point billion US dollars in loans to businesses on both continents for investing in sustainable agriculture, forestry, and other nature based solutions.
To date, both funds have contributed nearly one point million acres of land under sustainable management.
So there are proven examples.
Experience like this can inform the further conceptualization of drift to maximize economic, environmental, and societal impact and mobilize investments into Bankable drought resilience project.
Germany remains committed to addressing the challenges and you can count on Germany in supporting the agenda.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much Costar Great examples here of what consensual findings can achieve.
Jesminavio next, let's move into the investment side now because the European Investment Bank Bank is already deeply involved with sustainable finance and development investment, but drive resiliency can be difficult to finance.
I mean, benefits can be diffused long term and partly about losses avoided rather than revenues generated.
From an investor's perspective, what needs to change to make drive resilience genuinely investable? And how can a vehicle like Drift help change that? No, thank you very much.
I do not want to repeat a wide road.
It's a tremendous a tremendous impact on economic and livelihood and et cetera.
The European Investment Bank, I think is one of the largest financiers or water projects worldwide.
We fund a very large infrastructure like desalinization, and just to mention, for instance, that we are one of the most relevant founder of this big project in Jordan.
That is, it's a larger conveyor of water for 300 kilometers.
And I would like to underline that these larger infrastructure that necessitate the larger public financing investment, they also require strong reform because I mean, I would like to underline this point of the reform because, I mean, to attract private investors, I mean, they need to rely on an institutional framework that can protect their investment, that can see that they can generate a cash flows that can be returned to them.
So this is to say that whenever we have a large infrastructure investment where we want to invest, it's also important that there are reforms.
And I think that more than public finances, more than finances, what is necessary is also to have in place the right an institutional mechanism that can incentivize the private sector.
That said, you know, also the finance by the public institutions like versus DAB is very important where we can take the risk sharing, where we can take part of the risk so that whenever a private investor is coming, you know, he knows that there is a larger shareholders financier who can bear the first risk.
And I think that initiative like drift are essential because they can provide that type of risk sharing and also that, you know, public funding is important, you know, to share risk together with the private investors.
We had already experience for like the European investment bank with the land the certification neutrality fund.
That's been very successful experience, and we look forward to the success also of the drift.
But let me also say that, you know, how we can incentivize the product sector.
We see a lot of potential by investing in startup in venture, Initiative for researching and innovating, for instance, in crop seeds which are resistant to drought.
This is a field which is very much important because this phenomenon, unfortunately, extreme wet weather landscape will become more common in the future.
What we see is to be able to ensure that, for instance, in agriculture, we have all the system that can resist to these events.
But also in the irrigation system, we need innovation there so that we can use water efficiently.
And actually, the governance of water is important because we have to manage water in efficient way.
We have to ensure that we can have a very good system throughout the world.
We do not lose water.
It's not dispersed, that we can cope with the issue of non revenue water.
Again, it's necessary systemic approach where everyone has to do its part.
Governments put in place all the forms necessary to create a good environment for attracting private investors.
Public institutions and international organizations like DAB to put their seed money that can be multiplied and private sector together can go on.
So a lot to be done.
We are already present in many ways, and we definitely believe that initiative like this can do a difference.
Thank you very much for reminding us of the importance and the benefits of this institutional backing indeed.
U next.
We are having a conversation about drought resilience here, but this conversation is not separable from the conversation about land restoration.
You work directly on desertification, land degradation, and drought at the global environment facility, and one of the interesting things about drift is the fact that it doesn't treat drought purely as a water problem like I just mentioned.
It also targets land restoration and nature based solutions.
So why is restoring land itself an investment in drought resilience, please? Thank you.
Allow me first to congratulate the Grand Duchy of Luxebourg, France, and all partners in establishing this very important private sector fund, and we are excited to participate in the launch today.
I really think that the drift is kind of like the missing piece so far because I really see an financing package emerging, which was mentioned already with the other partners, the Ri Global Drought Resilience Partnership, the Jeff and the drift collaborate Okay.
The rest.
The program 140 millers I want to complete that Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Panelists.
Thank you.
Let's have a round of applause before this morning.
Many thanks to you for That brings us to particularly important role.
We have spent the last half hour talking about how concessional capital can have serious and crowding other sources of finance.
So now we're going to move from principle to commitment.
Now my pleasure to welcome His Excellency, Holand Ryland, Branch of Luperburg, China and Tgora for various special announcement.
Ambassador, welcome.
Thank you, Charlo.
Thank you very much, Ministers.
Good sea dear ambassador colleagues.
I don't know the Executive Secretary.
She's still around.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends of Land Soil.
Thank you very much for being here at this important event.
I think a lot has been said already and about its setup.
So I'm not going to add more, I think that I think I'm probably standing in between us and the buffet lunch that is being prepared in the back.
But as Shauna just mentioned, there is one announcement to be made.
All of you have heard about the athletic stature of these funds.
Catholic Catholic nature, meaning that public finance to contribute thread to private finance in this private vehicle.
So I have to announce you say after a set up fund alluded to by my colleague Ambassador Schumer to product ready to make a first initial investment of 5 million euro to The 5 million euro are going to contribute to attract additional investors next to us.
As mentioned, we look very much forward encouraging other international finance institutions to join us in investing into the fund and helping by using it was explained before, reducing the overall risk profile of the fund by investing in the first loss tranche of the fund.
And obviously, besides public institutions and international finance institutions, we would be happy to attract private investment.
We have had experience with the land degradation neutrality fund management, and we would like to repeat the same exercise with the growth.
So I really encourage you to have a closer look at the fund, come and talk to us to come and reach out to the executive secretary of the UNCCD and to see what we can do together in the future.
My second encouragement would go to all the representatives president.
On one hand, it's important to have a finance.
But on the other hand, We also need bankable projects to invest into.
And I think a lot of work has been done in countries with LDN setting.
And I understand now that countries are preparing roud resilience investment plans.
So I would really like to encourage affecting country parties to look into and to see what kind of bankable projects will be presented to the fund for financing.
The last thing before leaving the floor, Great announcement that we have been hearing just before by the representative of Jeff, Mr.
Appel, thank you very much.
I think this is a very encouraging signal as well to us, to all of us in order to find an important instrument for investing and co investing into drought resilience in the future.
Thank you very much.
Many Thanks, Ambassador.
Please do stay on stage with us because we have a surprise for you.
It comes from our lovely minister from Zimbabwe, please.
Can I please ask you all to maybe take to the front of the stage for this, please? We have a little present from Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is one of the countries that grow tea specialty.
And this tea has been on our tables for many years.
It has been in the United Kingdom.
It has been in your country in Egypt, throughout the country, we've been exporting this tea, and we think that you deserve to have a cup of this tea after launching this ft.
We therefore present to you the Zimbabwean tea from the eastern highlands of Nyanga very cool area, very beautiful area.
The tea is tasty, the Tganda tea.
If I may say one word, thank you very much.
I will taste the tea with great pleasure.
And as a small thank you, I will give you one of the first brushes of the drift logo.
So I hope you will share it.
And together, we will work for the success of the drift.
Thank you so much.
Well, many thanks to all of you.
What a lovely gesture, mutual appreciation, appreciation.
Thank you so very much.
DEF also sits within a much broader international effort to move the world from reactive drought response towards proactive drought resilience.
And central to that effort is the International Drought Resilience Alliance, Ira, co chaired by Senegal and Spain.
To bring us the perspective of its two co chairs, let me first welcome Maria Krišto Rodriguez DeSanto who's Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification at Spain's Ministry for the ecological Transition and the demographic challenge.
Welcome, Minister.
Good afternoon, excies, distinguished delegates, colleagues.
Allow me to begin thanking the government of Luxembourg and ENCCD Secretariat and all partners involved in organizing this important event as co chair of the International Drought Resilience Alliance, Ira, Spain is pleased to participate in the official launch of the drought Resilience Investment Facility, a milestone in our collective efforts to strengthen drought resilience worldwide.
Despite the scale and predictability of this challenge, financing for drought continues to be heavily concentrated on emergency response rather than prevention and resilience.
This is precisely why innovative financing matters and it is addressed under the pillars of the IDRA work plan.
Although public resources remain essential to address drought resilience, they will be not too efficient on their own.
We need to mobilize financing from all available sources, domestic, public, private, and blended finance.
We must also create the conditions that allow institutional institutional investors develop finance, and philanthropic organization and the prevailing sector to become active partners on this agenda.
From Spain perspective, innovative finance is not simply about increasing resources.
It's about using those resources more strategically.
We know that investing in preparedness, risk reduction, sustainable land management, water resilience, and ecosystem restoration delivers significant returns.
Investing in resilience is not a cost.
It's an investment in sustainable development, stability, and long term prosperity.
In this graph, we welcome the launching of the drought resilient Investment Fund.
Today is an important and innovative step forward.
Using blended finance approaches to reduce risk and attract additional capital can help bridge the drought financing gap and unlock investments at a scale that has not previously been possible.
Equally important, it can contribute to establishing drought resilience as a recognized and stable priority in investment.
I would like to acknowledge also the leadership of Suenburg to support the UN CCD and the global mechanism and also the contribution of initiatives such as the Real Global Partnership, which are helping to place drug resilience more firmly in the international financing agenda.
As founding member of Era, Spain remains firmly committed to advance the Alliance work, and this is why we made an additional contribution last year of 5 million Euros to reinforce the work of IDR and including the pillar on innovative finance.
In this context, EDR has actively supported with a financial contribution to the development and establishment of the dron resilient Investment facility, recognizing its potential to mobilize new resources and investment for drought resilience at scale.
We may believe that partnership are essential in success.
Governments, international organizations, multilateral development banks, financial institutions, businesses, and civil society, we must work together to mobilize resources, expertize and ination.
Today, the official an sends an important political signal.
It demonstrates that the international community is not only recognizing the growing threat of drought, but it's also developing concrete tools and is addressing it.
I would like to thank everybody, every people participating in this evening for the interest in this financing mechanism.
To, as I said, we can help ensure a more resilient future for people, land, water, and ecosystems.
Thank you very much for your assistance.
Thank you.
Many thanks to Spain.
We now welcome the other co chair of this initiative.
It's Senegal.
I'm delighted to welcome miss Sanp' technical advisor to the Ministry of Environment and Ecological Transition of the Republic of Senegal.
Welcome.
Excellence distinguished colleagues, please allow me Afra to begin by conveying the sincere apologies of His Excellency, doctor Au u.
Minister of Environment and Ecological Transition of Senegal, who had very much wish to be here today with you.
He's currently engaged in the high level plenary of Cp 17, where he's delivering Senegal's message on one of the defining challenges of our time throughout.
His message is clear.
Drought is not simply an environmental issue.
It's a cross cutting development challenge that affects our food and water security, livelihoods, ecosystems, economic stability, and increasingly peace and social cohesion.
It demands a response that is equally comprehensive.
Senegal is proud to serve alongside Spain.
As co chair of the International Drought Resilience Alliance, IDR, with the incredible support of Y and Sicily.
For us, this is both a responsibility and a reflection of the urgency of drought for Africa, particularly across West Africa.
Our response must move from reacting after drought strikes to investing in preparedness and resilience before crisis unfolds.
This is why mobilizing finance remains a core priority for Ira.
Today, we warmly welcome the launch of the Drug resilience Investment Facility as an important step forward, turning political commitments into practical investment.
Through its innovative finance pillar, it F is working to bring together public concessional and private capital to unlock the scale of investment that drought resilience requires.
Allow me to express Senegal's sincere appreciation to the government of Luxembourg for launching the P Hope Fund.
These initiatives sends a powerful message.
Hope must be backed by action, and resilience must be backed by finance.
We commend Lamb for this leadership and encourage more partners to join these collective efforts to expand equitable and accessible financing for drought affect countries and communities.
Senegal is committing to help demonstrate that leadership.
As Ira co chair, we want to ensure that the voices and priorities of drought affected countries, especially those across Africa, remain at the center of the global agenda.
But we must also be honest.
The finance gap remains enormous.
Countries know where resilience investments are needed.
Communities are already restoring landscapes, protecting water resources, and adapting their livelihoods.
Yet too often, finance remains inaccessible unpredictable or arrives too late.
That is why we need more new instruments.
We need more equitable finance, finance that rich communities faster, finance that rich communities faster, finance that blends public and private investment.
Finance that rewards prevention rather than paying only for disasters response.
The drug resilience facility represents an important beginning.
Now, we must ensure that it grows into a catalytic mechanism capable of mobilizing investment at the scale that our countries and communities deserve.
Let us build on the momentum of the R Global Drug resilience partnership.
Let us invest before the crisis.
Let us ensure that drug resilience become not only an environmental priority, but a foundation for sustainable development, stability, and shared prosperity.
I do thank you.
Thank you very much.
We have nearly reached the end of our fifth launch, but who better to close this launch than our host country and top 17 presidency? Mongolia understands profoundly the relationship between land, water, livelihoods, and resilience.
Therefore, it is my great pleasure to welcome Her Excellency Hulan Dene, Deputy Minister of Finance of Mongolia, speaking on behalf of the Cop 17 presidency.
Your Excellency, welcome.
I can see nothing.
Yeah.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I acknowledge that it's close to lunch, so just bear with me for a few more minutes.
Your Excellencies, distinguished delegates, partners, ladies and gentlemen, it's with great pleasure to address you today to close this important session on behalf of the presidency of Cop 17 and the government of Mongolia.
I would like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to Grand Duchar of Luxe Luxembourg whose partnership with the UN CCD has made this facility possible.
And for the catalytic announcement, which was just announced today by the ambassador 5 million Euro, which is really encouraging, and it's also creating momentum and which lays the foundation for the transition from emergency into sustainable resilience initiative and to the French Republic for carrying the recognition of drought and land degradation into the G seven Declaration back in April and to Zimbabwe and Germany, Global Environmental facility, and European Investment Bank for encouraging statements of support just made during the panel and to Spain and Senegal for expressing their important views and perspective as co chairs of the IDR and to the Executive Secretary of the UN CCD global mechanism who built this facility from mandate into an institution and to impact a global who take up its management today.
For Mongolia, natural disaster is the single largest risk carried by the herder community, which is quite a significant number of the population of our country.
Whenever drought is followed by Zoo, which is a very specific climate disaster specific to our country, which is characterized by snow blizzard and very cold winter, this is not only an ecological issue, but also societal and economic and public finance issue.
As a daughter of a herder family, some of my very lasting childhood memory ties with very hot and without grass summers.
So this also resonates with me personally.
And for our country, this is because this is such an important issue, and this has a huge impact on our communities and economy and public finance and ecology.
That's why Mongolia is investing into an instrument that identify and transfer that risk before it materializes, including early learning systems and index based livestock insurance and risk based financing mechanism.
But there's still more to be done.
When the herd is lost, the loss is absorbed also by public finance and the time has come for all of us today to recognize globally that the draft is a public finance problem as well on top of all the other problems we try to tack the issue with.
It's a contingent liability that the most government carry without pricing, without provisioning, and without recording.
And as we've discussed today, the draft already costs more than 307 billion a year globally, with majority of the people who are most severely affected are those from lower and middle income countries.
Yet the financing continues to move after the fact, which is being more reactive rather than being proactive, which I think all of the panelists and speaker today are highlighting.
And if there is one common thing that I can grasp from today, it is from being reactive to becoming more proactive in the way we think, how we approach, and in the mindset we have.
And therefore, from perspective of public finance official and also from Ministry of Finance, I welcome with the gratitude that the fact that the missing instrument is now being officially present following the discussions and commitments made during the last 90 minutes.
As a former investment fund manager in Luxembourg and as a doctor of a Herder family and now Minister of Finance, this cannot resonate more deeply with me than anything else.
And I feel like I'm in the right room, and I'm I'm to be happy to witness the announcement of such an important innovative financial mechanism.
And Drift is NABA facility with the fund manager with the first loss tranche, an anchor of public and philanthropic commitments, and in the aim of 300 to 400 million USD to be deployed in water management, sustainable agriculture, and land restoration.
It shifts draft resilience from emergency to an investment interest, further welcoming private capital, which is very smart and which is very selective, and it treats concession finance capital not as the payment, but as the lever and catalyst so that the institutional and private participation can stand behind it.
The presidency therefore records the launch of this draft resilience investment facility as one of the central outcomes of CP 17 and the cornerstone of draft resilience financing agenda of this conference was convened to address The presidency has also brought its own contribution to this agenda as a leader of International Year of Fringe lands and pastoralists.
Mongolia launched the Range lands flagship Initiative together with the UN CCD yesterday, as you may have witnessed already.
The range lands cover the vasture of the world's land surface and carry the livelihoods of pastoral communities across the dry lands, yet it attracts only a fraction of the world restoration and resilience finance.
These two initiatives launched a day apart are complementary to one another.
One recognized science, national priorities and country platforms, and the other supplies the capital structure, which is capable of financing in water security, sustainable land and land restorations.
The theme of this conference, restoring land and restoring hope.
Hope is not a financing strategy, but it is what becomes possible when herder, farmer, and national budget are no longer left to absorb the shock alone.
Today, we have put the capital behind that proposition.
And as I conclude, I call on the international financial institutions, multilateral development banks, the development finance institutions, and the private investors to put capital behind drought resilience, water security, land restoration, and resilient rangeland before the loss happens, not after it.
And with this, I would like to thank once again to all of you, all of the speakers and guests and who have been here with us today for the 90 minutes.
Together with this, we witnessed an important milestone.
And now, as I put, I invite all the speakers to join us for the group photograph.
Thank you.
May I please invite all the speakers and all the participants to please come to the stage for an official photograph.
I know there aren't many of you left because it's a busy day, another busy day at Cp 17, please do take to the stage.
Thank you.
Do we have any representatives from Senegoal and Spain still with us, maybe? Absolutely.
The co chairs, thank you for joining us.
And all we're missing now is a photographer.
That concludes the drift launch.
Many thanks to all the speakers who graced the stage here this morning.
Many thanks to all of you two in the audience for your attention and enjoy the rest of water day here at Cp 17.
Thank you.
And lunch indeed.