COP17 Secures $1.3bn for Land Restoration and Drought Resilience

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP17 has mobilised $1.3 billion for land restoration and drought resilience.

Governments from 23 countries across five continents have pledged the funds, which include $644.5 million in new capital and $216.4 million that had already been confirmed and is moving towards implementation.

The financing was confirmed at the summit's dedicated Finance Day on August 24.

Land degradation, caused by drought and damaging human activity, already costs the globe $900 billion each year. Droughts alone cause at least $300 billion in annual losses, with these events having increased by roughly a third since the turn of the century.

According to the UN, $355 billion a year is needed to restore land and build drought resilience, but at the moment, only $77 billion is being directed towards related initiatives and interventions, leaving a $278 billion funding gap.

To mark Finance Day at the COP, various governments, funds, and other organisations announced financial commitments to support land restoration and climate resilience.

New Funding for Land Restoration and Climate Resilience

The Asian Development Bank has directed $113 million towards the Green Inclusive Regional Agribusiness Fund, while the Green Climate Fund has pledged $40 million with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and TWENDE for projects across Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Spain has committed €5 million to the second phase of the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA), while Germany committed a further €11 million to CompensActions, an initiative that ensures smallholder farmers are fairly compensated for their work.

Rangelands Rising

The funding announcement coincided with the release of a new UNCCD report, published jointly with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The report, 'Rangelands Rising: Investing in Sustainable Management and Restoration', spotlights the importance and underutilised benefits of rangelands, which are vast areas of native vegetation, wetlands, and deserts primarily used for grazing livestock and wild animals.

These areas, which make up over half of the world's land surface, typically can't support the growth of traditional crops, instead supporting the creation of high-value animal meat and dairy. And when managed effectively, these pastoral systems also help to create and support some of the planet's most biodiverse landscapes.

Collectively, rangelands are worth an estimated $21-47 trillion annually, according to the report, or up to $5,000 per hectare. But these areas are under threat due to rising drought events and encroaching crop farming, with the work of 500 million pastoralists worldwide going largely unnoticed.

"For too long, the world has looked at rangelands and seen empty, degraded land, and looked at pastoralists and seen a problem to be fixed," said the director general of the IRLI, Professor Appolinaire Djikeng.

"The evidence tells a different story. These are among the most valuable landscapes on Earth, and the people who manage them are their frontline investors."

Rangeland degradation equals trillions of dollars lost every year. According to the report, every $1 invested in rangeland restoration generates $4-6 in returns, yielding up to $36 when other benefits like water supply are accounted for.

This year marks the UN International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, and the Rangelands Flagship Initiative was launched in Ulaanbaatar earlier in 2026 as a way to shine a spotlight on these ecosystems. The scheme is currently valued at $1.2 billion, providing support to 45 named projects.

WWF's global food and agriculture leader Joao Campari added: "For COP17 to move from action to implementation, there must be progress both inside and outside negotiation rooms. Thankfully, for rangelands and grasslands, this is happening.

"We are long past the time that these ecosystems are prioritised, given their crucial role in delivering land, nature, climate, and development goals. But recognition is only the first step: we know the solutions that work and the crucial role that adopting nature-positive agriculture will play. Implementation rests on finance being unlocked. The pledges made so far at COP17 are the first step in providing what's needed and in leaving a lasting legacy."

Unlocking Private Finance

Currently, private sector investment only accounts for 6% of total global finance for land restoration, making it a hugely underutilised source of finance, both to support rangeland restoration and land regeneration more broadly.

One of the mechanisms to unlock greater private sector support at the desertification COP is Business4Land (B4L), which supports companies in setting targets, adopting sustainable practices, and disclosing their impacts on land, soil, and water. On finance, it supports mechanisms intended to direct private capital towards land restoration and drought resilience.

Building on the initiative, Mongolia launched the first national B4L Hub, in a bid to help close the finance gap at a national level.

Russia followed suit to establish its own Hub, while Luxembourg established a Business4Land Foundation and Germany offered support to the B4L Finance Expert Group.

"6% is not a rounding error; it is a verdict on how regenerative landscapes have been packaged for investors," said the president and chief executive of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Peter Bakker.

"That's why businesses are calling for more coherent policy frameworks, stronger public-private collaboration, and investment conditions that enable regenerative landscapes to be scaled. First-loss capital, national Business for Land Hubs, and a Business4Land Foundation will start to fix this. This is not charity - it is balance-sheet risk that business has every reason to tackle.