Since Monday 9 May, Ivory Coast has been hosting the fifteenth edition of the COP15 Conference of Parties to combat desertification by 2030. It brings together representatives from around 197 countries and focuses on the theme“Land. Life. Heritage. From a precarious world to a prosperous future”.
One hundred high-level personalities are present at the International Conference Centre of the Sofitel Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan to call for the mobilisation of all to ensure that the Earth continues to be a safe place to live not only for our time but also for generations to come.
It is a big event with more than 5000 participants. Indeed, Heads of State such as those of Niger, Togo, DRC…, Heads of Cooperation Agencies at the global level, not to mention senior decision-makers of the United Nations, including the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, Ms. Amina Mohammed. French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will participate in the debates via video conference. They are all united around a noble cause: to improve the sustainable management of land as a means of economic and social development.
The urgent need for action
According to a press release from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the theme of the meeting is “a call to action to ensure that the land, which is our source of life on this planet, continues to benefit present and future generations”.
As a result, according to the UN, 40% of the world’s land is currently degraded. The African continent is particularly affected, especially in the southern Sahara. This calls for reflection on concrete measures on a global scale to slow down the momentum of desertification, but also deforestation, droughts and soil pollution.
Further, according to experts, about 4 million hectares of forest are lost every year in Africa due to the search for fertile soil, mining and timber collection. This represents an annual decrease of 3% of the continent’s GDP.
Abidjan, centre of the fight against desertification
Thus, the international conference “will focus on restoring one billion hectares of degraded land by 2030, sustaining land use in the face of climate change impacts, and fighting increased disaster risks such as droughts, sand and dust storms and forest fires,” the UN agency said.
The Great Green Wall project, which aims to restore 100 million hectares of dryland in Africa by 2030 along an 8,000-kilometre stretch from Senegal to Djibouti, is also at the heart of the discussions.
The other problem the speakers cannot ignore is called the “Abidjan Initiative”. The latter aims to mobilise between 1 and 2 billion dollars from donors and own resources to restore degraded land and significantly increase agricultural production in Ivory Coast by 2050.
The participants in this global meeting have until 20 May to agree on measures to combat desertification.
