UN Desertification Summit Debates How to Deploy $12bn Land Fund

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is convening with a $12 billion fund on the table, but negotiators are deadlocked over governance structures, disbursement criteria, and whether money should flow through national governments or directly to local land managers. The summit arrives as an estimated 40% of Earth's land is now degraded, threatening food and water security for roughly 3.2 billion people.

The core tension is not the money — it is who controls it and on what terms. Donor nations want accountability mechanisms that route funds through established government ministries; recipient communities, particularly in the Sahel and Central Asia, argue those ministries have historically captured funds without delivering restoration at the ground level. The obvious solution — direct community funding — requires dismantling procurement rules that exist precisely to reduce corruption, creating a genuine structural bind.

Watch whether the summit agrees on a hybrid disbursement model that satisfies both transparency demands and local-access requirements, or whether the $12 billion stalls in procedural limbo. The timeline matters: without committed restoration by 2030, the UNCCD's own modelling suggests an additional 1.5 billion hectares of productive land will be lost.