Youth, Land and Livelihoods: Building the Next Generation of Land Stewards - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Just one hand everyone and Land and People's Day for all of us.
Who is excited that today's Land and People's Day event and you're all acting like the adults that were here earlier.
So can we get some noise for the young people? Happy Land and People's Day, everyone.
This doesn't just happen every day.
And when we have Land and People's Day, we need to celebrate and recognize it for what it is, right? And I'm excited to see that you're all joining us this afternoon and apologies for the five, six, seven minutes delay.
We had to clean up the stage a little bit because you're all wonderful guests.
We need to make sure that the room is sparkling for all of you because you're all sparkling.
So the session this afternoon is youth, livelihoods, and building the next generation of land stewards.
We are all land stewards in our own neighborhood.
So hopefully this session will also be able to really speak into that.
Since the 17th of August, young people have been in this place, organizing themselves, having discussions, meetings, and interacting with different delegates and the message has been one, we are here, we are restoring land, and we want to partner with you and work with you.
If you paid attention to the song that was being played, that is the Land Anthem, and that's a song that I love and it's very dear to my heart.
If you've joined any Zoom sessions that we have at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification Youth Caucus, that's our anthem because we believe every single word that is in that song.
So we never start a session without that song actually playing.
My name is Julia Cressette.
I am from Uganda and I'm part of the UNCCD Youth Caucus.
But to start us off, I want to invite the amazing Ricky, who is one of the artists behind that song.
And the reason we invited him as well is because, like I said, that song inspires us.
So in his own words, outside the song, I'd like to give him the mic to actually inspire us one more time in his own words.
Ricky, the mic is yours.
Thank you so much.
I must say, everyone.
Thank you so much.
So the song that you heard is called the Land Anthem now.
It's a song that I created a few years ago with a lot of love and a lot of care, and the lyrics of the song ask us to celebrate the joy of life.
We are all born from the land.
You and I and all of life are all born from the land.
So that is basically the lyrics of it.
You can check out the song if you've not already.
Listen to it.
So coming back to today's topic, young people have always been contributing to land restoration, sustainable livelihoods, and resilient communities.
And we've been recognizing that time and again, but the potential will remain limited unless recognition is matched by real access to land, finance, skills, opportunity, and decision-making.
But the problem is not a shortage or a lack of ambition among young people.
They have many ambitions.
They've got big dreams, they've got big ideas, but it's often a shortage of pathways for that ambition to actually come to reality or to become action.
So youth are not only affected by today's challenges, they are also responding to them.
Now, we all know there are over 1.3 billion young people in the world, the largest youth generation in our planet's history.
90% of the young people are actually living in developing nations, and I can say this with a lot of conviction simply because in my country of India, we've got over 400 million youth.
So that's such a large number.
Now just makes the youth central to how we think about the future of land, livelihoods, and resilience.
And young people, as I said, are already restoring degraded land, they're developing new agricultural approaches, creating businesses, and finding practical ways to strengthen their communities.
The participation of youth should go beyond just mere presence.
Being invited into the room is really important.
And we've seen time and again that at events like this, but it's not the same as having actual influence.
The hard way is meaningful youth participation requires access to decision-making, finance, technical support, partnerships, and land and other productive resources.
So to conclude, I'd like to say that the success of this gathering should therefore be measured not only by the visibility of youth.
Youth is always visible, but by stronger partnerships, commitment, and pathways that go beyond COP 17 really.
Thank you so much and great rest of the panel.
[Applause and transition] Another round of applause, please.
[Continuing...] We're going to the high level among ourselves.
Our ambassadors today are different and for our keynotes, I actually want to invite our ambassadors who are young to welcome their voices, youth voices from the frontline.
Jacob, Bilk, and Rosanna, if you can join me on stage I'd like to give them a round of applause because we are.
These are going to be our keynote speakers today.
I hope you listen to them and check their message like I've been actually checking for the last couple of days.
[Pause for applause] Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So like I said, we are doing something [with] young people from the ground, voices of young people doing something.
Because land degradation is a community concern, and behind every drought is a family, and we all come from families.
We all come from these communities.
But while we come from these communities, land degradation or drought are not holding us back.
These challenges are not holding us back, but they're actually pushing us to be able to do something.
So to start us off, I would like to invite Bilk Huluk to share his story and what he's doing in his community for his people.
Over to you.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Bilk Huluk.
I am the founder of HuuClimate.
We are a climate startup and I'm also representing the herder cooperative in the southern region of Mongolia, and I'm also representing the young nomadic herders in Mongolia.
So because I grew up as a nomadic herder and have a lot of personal experience with nomadic herding, I put this picture because these are my cousins and I'm in the middle, the older one.
So we were herders in this picture.
It was 2007.
And actually, one of my cousins is right here, and I included this picture because these three kids are the last of us that remember migrating.
For nomadic herders, migration is at the heart of the nomadic culture.
I would like to share a story of how I got to this point.
So my grandparents were actually nomadic herders of many generations.
They were "Mirad," which was a prestigious term for a nomadic herder who had more than 1,000 livestock.
But just two years after this photo was taken in 2009, my grandparents actually lost almost 80% of his herd to a winter disaster called "Dzud" in Mongolia.
So in that year, over 10 million livestock died.
And our grandparents and his nine children started moving to the city one by one.
And today, only one of them is still herding today.
But luckily, we went back to herding in 2017 and started our herder cooperative.
And today, I am co-running the Arctic Kherlen, which is a herder cooperative in Mongolia.
And a similar experience happened in 2023 when a lot of livestock died in the 2023 winter as well.
And that's when I decided to start something to help my community of nomadic people.
So we are building different technologies to help herders adapt to the change in climate and help them improve their lives, protect their livestock, protect their lives, and even protect their pasture.
So we built an application and it's being used already in 13 provinces across Mongolia, and a lot of herders are using our technology to make their lives much safer, and also we're helping them migrate much more efficiently with satellite and AI technology.
And a lot of young herders are on the fence about whether to continue the tradition or not.
So we recently actually hosted our first young nomadic herders program.
So these nomadic herders need courage.
The nomadic herders need the right knowledge and technology to really continue their nomadic heritage.
So we've brought together a lot of inspiring speakers, and also we heard about their problems and what they think is the right solution to continue their nomadic culture.
And I'm hoping to make more impact with the collaborations and insights that I've got from COP 17.
So thank you.
Thank you very much.
This is our youth champion for COP 17, another round of applause for our youth champion for COP 17.
Next, I would like to invite Rosanna, please forgive me if I mispronounce your name, who is a nomadic youth.
She'll be reminding us of the deep connection between land, culture, and livelihood.
Thank you for giving me the mic and all of you for participating and hearing her voice.
So I am Rohana Kashy.
I am an indigenous person from Iran, and she pronounced my name very well, actually.
So what I do in my community is to record, collect data, and do online [work].
And also, you can see the pictures.
My knowledge collecting is mostly on carpets.
What I'm here to say today is very important and connected to this COP—that I have faced so many problems with connecting to my traditional knowledge because many things have changed and I am too young.
They say to experience it anymore because it doesn't exist.
We can't practice the old form or the original form of our culture because it doesn't exist anymore.
It is only told by our grandparents and elders.
There's no exact experience of that.
I don't have the exact experience of migrating, the washing of [wool for] rugs, doing the traditional works that are part of our culture for rugs.
That's one of the most famous things about Kashy Kaag carpets.
We can't practice it exactly like before.
And so we can't say we can go back to such cultures because of land degradation and droughts.
We had seasonal rivers that we needed for all kinds of work to make such carpets part of our culture.
But we are facing droughts in seasons that were not common before.
I just wanted to say how important it is for us to acknowledge you in all of our communities because you need to learn and to understand.
But if you don't give them care and you don't support them, you don't acknowledge them, it will be worthless.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, and I want to invite Jacob because I'm aware that the minister wants to go back.
You want to hear from the minister.
Jacob, before the minister comes on, if you could let us know what are you doing back in Africa with the young pastoralists, that would be great.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Julia.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Jacob and I wanted just to share so I'll share a small story for 2 minutes.
That these are people and you see me here who grew up in these ecosystems with these animals.
If I can look at this picture here, that is how connected we are with the land and possibly that could be me some years back with maybe my best friend at that time.
I could see myself connected to the land, not only to the land by the animals, but now the real challenge came again when I had to choose between a formal education and continuing with this livelihood.
And then I was forced to go back to school and leave this livelihood with my parents.
When there's a drought and maybe scarcity of water due to climate change, there is no one who is there to look at my animals and be at school.
This forced us to see whether there is a future in pastoralism and also in coupling it with education.
That's why we, the young people in pastoralism, find that for us it's best to hold on to education and also to the livelihood that we saw our parents and grandparents sustain.
And coupled with what we are doing, we saw that these livelihoods and these rangelands are one connected cycle, and this connected cycle is from rangelands to livelihoods, which depend on very healthy soils, and then healthy people.
And that's how we now took a chance to go and do what is needed for us to restore this land.
Now, when it came to this picture, it's a very interesting picture.
This is a picture from Moto, Uganda.
It's where pastoral youth gathered in Uganda to come and say that we need a space for ourselves.
Before we claim that space, we have to get ourselves organized.
We have to get ourselves a platform for engagement.
That's where the momentum began and it actually began in 2022.
But this was last year in November when we gathered in East Africa.
Then in the next picture you'll see us again here, and this is now a different phase, representing the global youth.
Where we came together in Madrid to say that we need to have one common voice.
The common voice is the declaration that we presented to the UNCCD and government of Mongolia this year during the global gathering before we joined COP 17.
These are the young people who are chosen, who are now in the livestock sector and they're saying that we are not supposed to be forced to choose between living the dream that we grew up seeing our grandfathers sustaining this livelihood and also get education.
We should be supported in where we are and make this infrastructure so suitable for us to remain in the rural area and produce.
I heard one of the panelists say that we need to produce from where we are in a different way and get money.
That's what the young people are saying.
We need to get into the rural areas and support their livelihood.
If you go to the last picture, there is now the youth saying that yeah, we need more power, we need more investment, and we need more recognition of the young people and not only young people in pastoralism, but the young people globally.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Jacob.
Another round of applause to our youth voices from the ground.
We've heard from three amazing young people who are doing work in their communities on the ground, [showing] that meaningful change requires collaboration and partnership, but also at the same time, it requires that these messages from young people actually get heard.
It is my honor to actually invite His Excellency, the Minister of Culture, Sports, Tourism, and Youth of Mongolia to actually join us on the stage and also share his reflections.
If we could all applaud for the minister as he comes on stage, that would be appreciated.
On Tuesday when we started our youth forum, the minister joined us and even as we are closing and sharing our reflections from the youth forum, he's here as well to share his message with us.
Honorable Minister, the floor is yours, Jacob.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Sustained.
The distinguished guests and partners and young people.
On behalf of the government of Mongolia, I'm pleased to join this COP 17 session, youth and livelihoods, during Land and People's Day.
Land degradation affects food, water, jobs, and livelihoods.
Up to 40% of the world's land is degraded and more than 100 million hectares of productive land are lost each year.
For Mongolia, these challenges are acute.
More than 70% of our land is rangeland.
Pastoralism supports families and our culture, while droughts and harsh winters threaten livelihoods.
Young people aged 15 to 34 make up 28% of Mongolia's population.
They must be partners in solutions, not simply invited to meetings.
Mongolia will focus on three areas.
First, youth participation in decisions on land, drought, water, and rangelands.
Second, youth-led monitoring, research, and digital technologies.
Third, restoration linked to employment, innovation, entrepreneurship, and green jobs.
Building on youth programs in the 8,000-kilometer Silk Growth caravan, our ministry, UNDP, and partners are developing a youth resilience initiative.
It will give rural youth practical skills and links to mentors, finance, markets, and researchers.
Our goal is simple.
Healthy land should create better lives and opportunities for the next generation.
Government cannot act alone.
We invite the UNCCD, UN organizations, the G20 Global initiative, our Alliance Partners, civil society, and the private sector to work with Mongolia's youth.
Let COP 17 turn dialogue into practical projects, partnerships, and green jobs.
Together, we can protect land, support communities, and build a better future.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for joining us.
But also, because we know you have a very busy schedule, if time allows, you can stay with us.
If not, you can leave.
At this moment, allow me to invite Ricky, who is our global focal point for the UNCCD Youth Caucus to actually take us to the youth statement.
In the last couple of months and weeks, young people around the world have come together and come up with a message in terms of what they want to bring to COP 17? What kind of message do they actually want to deliver for this COP? What are the asks of young people? Ricky, the floor is yours.
All right.
Hello, everyone.
Thank you so much for joining in this very warm action today.
Yeah, thank you so much for being here.
Many thanks to the minister too, you know, for being here with us and delivering his closing remarks.
This is very much appreciated.
And also thanks to you who presented the great work you are doing.
I think it's very inspiring for everyone in the room, for other young people who might have joined this kind of convention for the first time.
So thank you very much.
And so, about the general engagement of the Youth Caucus, the official mechanism for engaging youth under the UNCCD, I just wanted to share, like, you know, our time before COP was probably as busy as the time during COP, because we had to prepare many things.
The youth forum was one of these, which we prepared with many team members and partners and also the other sessions that happened here during COP.
I hope many of you could have joined these sessions, side events, pavilion events, and others.
And one other thing that we did was also prepare the youth statement that Julia mentioned.
So the youth statement is our official document that we will, you know, forward to parties and the Secretariat for consideration, and it really is supposed to reflect the youth voices, all of you.
It's not my youth statement.
It's not the Youth Caucus youth statement.
It's the statement of all youth.
And I just wanted to tell you a little bit about how we went about it.
So we started this whole process I think around May this year.
The first thing that we did, the first step was to have an open document with some guiding questions and really everyone could put into that.
Like we had to share on our social media accounts and our WhatsApp groups, and everyone could contribute to this.
And we received, I think, over 200 contributions from individuals, partner organizations, and youth organizations.
And then we had a fantastic job to consolidate these 200 inputs or more into the priorities that we saw from these contributions, and this was the first step.
The second step was to have another open consultation to discuss this consolidated document with all the youth in an online room.
And then again, another round of consultation and consolidation happened.
After that, we saw that this whole statement already reflects the priorities and important matters for you very well, but it was not so much aligned with the agenda of the UNCCD.
So therefore, we had to look into the draft decisions that were put forward for COP and for the CST and align our recommendations with that as well.
And yeah, now we are here.
We have then also looked into this again.
And during the youth forum, I think many of you have heard me speaking about this before.
We had already presented five key messages.
After that, we came together again, considered a few recommendations from people who approached me personally or via email.
And then now we came up with nine key messages that really reflect what youth consider as important.
So I want to go over this with you.
I'm just reading it.
And yeah, I hope it really resonates with all the young people in the room.
So the first one is "Institutionalize youth participation." Ensure young people are formally involved throughout national UNCCD processes from design and implementation to monitoring and evaluation, including national action programs and land degradation neutrality strategies.
Two, very much in line with the first one: "Fully implement the youth engagement strategy." Yes, which you can all look up on our website.
Move the YES from a global framework to practical national and regional action through clear implementation guidance, sharing of good practices, and integration into relevant policies and programs.
Three: "Direct resources to frontline youth." Provide accessible, non-debt funding such as dedicated grants and small grants alongside technical support, mentorship, and very important capacity building.
Funding should minimize bureaucracy and be accessible to youth-led and locally-led organizations.
Four: "Recognize the land as a living system." Treat land as interconnected with food, water, biodiversity, health, livelihood, culture, and peace.
Prioritize holistic landscape management, regenerative agriculture, and soil health over short-term extraction.
Five: "Protect pastoralism and local knowledge." Very much relevant to this country in particular.
Recognize pastoralism, rangeland stewardship, and indigenous and local land practices as effective restoration approaches.
Measure restoration by genuine ecosystem recovery rather than simplistic indicators such as tree-planting numbers.
Six: "Build stronger government- youth partnerships." Treat youth organizations as implementation partners by creating regular dialogue and collaboration across governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector.
Strengthen pathways for young people to access knowledge, education, and careers in land restoration and sustainable land management.
Seven: "Expand capacity building and intergenerational learning." Equip young people with the skills, knowledge, and network needed to participate meaningfully in UNCCD processes and turn commitments into action, including through training on negotiations, policies, sustainable land management, and implementation.
Eight: "Measure and strengthen accountability for youth engagement." Make youth participation measurable through voluntary reporting and indicators that assess both its quantity and quality.
Track whether young people actually influence decisions, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, not simply whether they attend meetings.
Nine, the last point: "Strengthen youth coordination within the UNCCD Secretariat." Consider establishing a dedicated youth focal point within the UNCCD Secretariat to improve communication between the Secretariat, parties, and youth organizations, expand access to opportunities and information, and support implementation of YES, which is very much in line with the second point.
So these are the nine recommendations.
The following next steps after this is that we will also publish the drafts.
You know, there were several drafts that led to this final version.
We will publish this on our website.
There will also be a much more extensive document, you know, in addition to these key messages that will be uploaded and will be accessible for all of you.
And yeah, thank you very much.
These are the key messages.
Thank you very much, Ricky.
Another round of applause for our global youth focal point for the UNCCD Youth Caucus.
We are going to do a bit of transition.
Thank you very much for joining.
Because this is a youth event and we don't want to be the only people who are speaking.
I'd like to invite Victoria, another young person who is going to invite our next speakers.
It's an intergenerational dialogue and Victoria will be leading us through this.
Victoria, over to you.
Thank you so much, Julia.
Thank you, everyone for joining.
I would like to quickly, you know, get ahead of our schedule today and invite Dr.
Anna Luisa, Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security.
Dr.
Anna Luisa, please kindly join us on stage here.
Are you here? Okay.
Please give a round of applause while she comes up.
Yes, Crystal.
I would also like to invite Sonia, UNCCD Spotlight Champion.
Please give a round of applause.
A round of applause by the time [she arrives].
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Also, Samid Agribas, the President of Zero Waste Foundation, and climate High-Level Champion.
Thank you for joining us today.
Thank you.
I'd also like to invite Mr.
William Griswold, Small Farm Cities Africa, Malawi.
Please give a round of applause while he joins us.
Thank you so much.
Also, I would like to invite Sarin San, Coordinator, Panorama Solutions for Healthy Planet, UNDP.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you so much.
Please give a round of applause while they make their way to the stage.
Yes.
Okay.
Without further ado, thank you for joining us today for the intergenerational dialogue, responding to youth's agenda.
My first question goes to [someone].
If COP 17 could deliver a change for young people, what could it be with your work with young people? If COP 17 could deliver one change for young people working on land degradation, what should it be? Thank you for your great question.
Also, I am very happy to be here for this great event.
You know, as a government of Turkey, we are preparing for COP 31.
We appointed our youth champion.
Also, I served as over five years on the Istanbul Youth Council.
When I worked as a youth leader, I felt—and I know every young person working on the front lines of land restoration and sustainable agriculture— now I'm president of the Zero Waste Foundation besides being a High-Level Climate Champion.
It is my experience on the ground, generally working for agriculture, working for climate and environmental issues.
Generally, young people work on those issues.
Also, young people's leadership is very important for tackling the crisis and sustainable agriculture.
I am focusing on the global climate action agenda, which is about turning commitments into implementation.
This connects governments, communities, businesses, investors, civil society.
It is mainly my role as a High-Level Climate Champion to connect non-state actors to government, including universities, local governments, young people, women, and disadvantaged groups.
We are organizing some consultation meetings with different regions.
Lastly, we organized our consultation meeting in Kenya, Nairobi in the Slum area.
Over 1 million people living there.
Approximately over 30% are young people.
We felt their situation.
We need to talk about access to clean water, access to clean food, because in the world, the young generation has a real problem.
We need to talk about real problems on the diplomatic table.
During COP 31, we are trying to support the young generation in discussing real things with disadvantaged young people.
I hope we will create strong momentum with these young leaders.
Also, I can say many things, but I would like to say one more point about my role as president of the Zero Waste Foundation.
If any young groups or NGOs has any idea or any project about COP 31, we created funds for the young generation.
We are covering flight tickets, accommodation, and some project costs.
If you want to get more details, you can visit our website.
Because we need to encourage young people joining COP 31, it will be very important for our future because those working for our future are young people, those working for the planet are young people.
Young people are very important to us.
Thank you for listening to me.
I have another commitment.
I need to leave a little bit early.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
One key takeaway from what she said is that youth at the front lines that are working in grassroots communities.
She is linking them to the government for COP 31 and we hope that all of this implementation leads to actual programs in communities that need them.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So moving further, I'm going to now ask Dr.
Anna Luisa.
I don't have much time to read her bio, but her work spans from Sustainable Development Assessment, environmental damage evaluation, and guys, she has represented the UNCCD Scientific and Policy processes for years, including as chair of the IPCC Working Group System.
Please give a round of applause for her.
Thank you.
Dr.
Anna Luisa, my question to you: if COP 17 could deliver an action point for young people, those who are working on land degradation, what would it be? Based on your work and years of experience, if COP 17 could deliver that, what would it be? Thank you.
I'm not a good singer, but I can talk.
I am so excited to be here to represent the elders and I am so excited about this opportunity, I am so lucky to learn so much from the presentations.
I have been in other events before this when [we had] a lot of good ideas, experience, and energy.
Now the time is to collect them and to give [them] a path.
Because what I learned is the youth don't ask for a place or a chair.
They ask for a positive presence and also to give positive [input] [and] innovative solutions.
This COP, as you know, is very difficult because of some geopolitical tensions.
You have to say this is not so easy.
Going to have a COP in this strange period that the world is living in, and we have to improve youth real engagement.
Real engagement means to be listened to, participate in all phases of the economic world, the value chain, starting from soil management, from the health of the ecosystem toward the economic and social improvement of the livelihood of communities, the people on the ground.
This should be based on an alliance.
I am here to propose also an alliance between elders.
We have our experience.
We have seen a lot of things.
We participated in so many meetings, experience, field activities, but maybe we are a little bit tired, and the energy that the young people bring to this [is] a common arena.
I underline, once again, the word "alliance." As Italy, we are a donor, and we are also an affected country.
I believe that it is very helpful to better understand what is going on on the ground.
And we promoted at least two actions: the Youth for Climate Action, where we, together with the UN in Rome, [have] a lot of activities looking at capacity building and empowering in many ways.
But we also have our project on ISO, together with UNEP and IUCN, that is strongly directly linked to the community and focused on youth and women.
We are very proud of it because we see a lot of results.
What I will transmit is my wish that this COP would consider this correlation to give a right place to ideas with a look at innovation.
Thank you so much.
[Applause] Another round of applause.
That's years of experience speaking.
One key takeaway from what she said: the youth bring positive presence.
So all of us here, we are filled with positivity and [need] capacity building for young people and bringing real engagement to the frontline.
Thank you so much, Dr.
Luisa.
Okay, moving forward, I would be inviting the UNDP representative.
She was present for us at the youth forum, guys, and she is the project coordinator for Panorama at UNDP.
A round of applause for her once more again, please.
So my question to you, Dr.
Sarin, if COP 17 could realize one outcome, okay.
One outcome for young people, one change, one outcome for young people working on land degradation, what would it be? Thank you so much for the question and also thank you so much for having me here.
I would like to answer— well, I had something else prepared, but we just had a side event before this one on accelerating youth-led implementation of the Rio Conventions, which was co-hosted and co-organized by the three youth constituencies of the three conventions: of course, UNCCD Youth Caucus and the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, as well as the UNFCCC Youth and Youth Negotiators Academy.
And what we heard is what we also heard from the youth champions earlier: youth are already restoring land.
Youth are already conserving biodiversity and taking action for climate.
So what we discussed and what we heard is that youth are not asking for any kind of favors here.
What young people in the room and also beyond have asked is: "Please provide us the enabling environment to do the work that we are already doing." I think there are great examples that are already out there beyond just the COP.
What I would like to actually make a call to everyone here in the room as well as beyond is: let's think about what can we as individuals do to make sure that youth have not only a seat at the table, but have the opportunity to implement the work that we're talking about here, whether it's land restoration or, you know, climate and biodiversity action.
I think every one of us can do that.
I mean, we are, of course, you know, waiting for negotiations to progress, and we are calling for stronger commitments.
And if you go to any of the events that are happening right now, there's, of course, and of course with good reason, [calls] for funding to be increased and for capacity building, [among other things].
But I think rather than repeating that, which of course they are very important, I think my call here would be: let's think—each one of us, how can we make sure? What can we do as individuals to make sure that if you have a colleague in your organization who is young? Please invite that young person to the meeting where the decision is being taken.
If you are designing a project for land, and of course, [the same applies] for biodiversity [and] climate.
If you are designing a project, please think about allocating a certain amount of budget so that young people can implement that, so that, you know, we have this intergenerational— not only dialogue, but intergenerational equity, as we discussed in our previous event.
And also, let's face it, if we want to achieve [a world where] we want to live in harmony with nature, [how] can we do that without young people being there with us and all of us? That's my call.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
That was a call to action, and it resonated with me.
Thank you so much.
She said we are all saddled with the responsibility to be climate resilient in our communities.
It is your responsibility.
Before we come to the frontline and to the global stage, we, on our own, have the responsibility to become climate-resilient.
For the future we all talk about to restore our hope— it is our responsibility.
Thank you so much for that.
My next question is to Dr.
William.
[Griswold], the founder and CEO of Small Farm Cities in Africa.
Thank you so much for coming.
My question to you: if COP 17 could deliver a change for young people working on land restoration, what should it be? What should this change address? What should be the outcome of this change from COP 17? Thank you so much.
Hello, everyone.
My name is William Griswold.
I'm co-founder and COO of Small Farm Cities Africa.
We're based in rural Malawi and rural Kenya.
What we do is work with communities to actually build communities.
We build hyper- affordable housing that is eco-friendly and extremely affordable.
Homes are less than $100 to build.
And then we work with families to cultivate the land around that home using precision and regenerative agriculture as a way to make an income and pay for that home.
So when it comes to recommendations, I would give two.
The first one I would say is that when it comes to talking with young people about the challenges that they face, what you'll always find is that there's not just one challenge.
Challenges are multidimensional.
When you get into conversations, they can start with the quality of your home.
They can move to income, they can move to lack of access to finance, they can move to questions around infrastructure.
They can move to education.
They can then go and talk about health.
There's a variety of challenges that young people face.
And I think what's important for us, as we think about solutions, is not to put them in silos, but instead to think about holistic solutions, because there are economies of scale there, there's efficiency there.
And then there's also just a deeper understanding, [and] respect for the context there.
The second thing I would say, a recommendation: I would say it's something that I've learned and seen with the youth here at COP 17 and the youth around the world.
It's a trait that I think many youth have that sometimes can fade over time, and that's the trait of curiosity.
Can we continue to stay curious? Can we continue to ask questions and care about what's happening in places far away from us? Can we continue to care about what's happening in rural Malawi? Can we care about pastoralists in rural Mongolia? Can you care about these topics? Because if we continue to care, we can contextualize solutions, because without context, our solutions won't go anywhere.
So I'd say let's focus on multidimensional solutions, and let's continue to care and be curious.
Thank you so much.
If we continue to care, we'll be able to contextualize solutions for a greater and greener future and restore our land from degradation.
So thank you so much for that session.
My next question's speaker is Asa Ma Nang.
She's a UNCCD Spotlight Champion.
A round of applause for her, please.
And she's a six-time African Judo Champion who competed at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games.
Thank you so much, Asa Ma Nang, for being here with us.
So my question to you is: we want to hear your story.
Your story of land degradation.
Tell us how it has been for you, your journey, and also, guys, Asa Ma Nang has a little demonstration for us.
After her speaking engagement, so please stay tuned and well engaged.
Can you put on your headsets for translation? I have a good story.
Yeah.
If you speak French, that's good.
Yeah.
When you are ready.
When you're ready, she's ready.
Maybe give me some headsets.
Yes.
Thank you.
Do you have one? Yes.
Yes.
Everybody ready? Yes.
[Breathing exercise begins] So I didn't know what it was.
It had been spoken about, but really I was not in the field.
I was concentrating on my Olympic career.
And then also the Paris Olympics came up, I was focused on my trajectory.