Building Drought-Resilient Landscapes: Linking Water Security, Land Restoration and Youth Action
Held at the Türkiye Pavilion during COP17 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the side event “Building Drought-Resilient Landscapes: Linking Water Security, Land Restoration and Youth Action” brought together experts and practitioners to explore practical pathways for strengthening drought resilience through integrated approaches to water security, land restoration, data, innovation and youth engagement.
The event was organized by the UNCCD Secretariat, the UNCCD Community of Learning and Practice (CLP) Africa and the Global Water Partnership (GWP), with the support of institutional and knowledge partners.
The session was moderated by Pinar CANLI, Co-Chair of the UNCCD Community of Learning and Practice (CLP) Northern Mediterranean, and featured contributions from four speakers representing diverse regional and thematic perspectives: Dieudonné ILBOUDO, Water and Environment Specialist from Burkina Faso and co-chair of UNCCD CLP Africa; Aya Ait El Madani, Youth for Climate Morocco, UNCCD Focal Point and YPARD; Prof. Dr. Sabrija Čadro, Professor at the University of Sarajevo and Co-Chair of UNCCD CLP Central and Eastern Europe; and Amélia Francine BAZI, Deputy Representative of the NGO AutreTerre in Burkina Faso.
The discussions highlighted that drought resilience cannot be achieved through isolated interventions. Dieudonné ILBOUDO emphasized the value of indigenous and community-based knowledge, including practices such as zai and demi-lunes, and highlighted how local knowledge can be combined with innovation to restore degraded land and improve water management. The experience demonstrated the importance of building solutions with communities and strengthening their capacity to manage and restore their landscapes.
Aya Ait El Madani highlighted the critical role of young people in addressing desertification, drought and land degradation. She called for stronger and more meaningful youth participation, particularly through youth-led innovation, entrepreneurship, community mobilization and involvement in environmental decision-making.
From a regional data and knowledge perspective, Prof. Dr. Sabrija Čadro stressed that drought is multidimensional and should not be assessed through a single indicator. Rainfall, soil moisture, surface and groundwater availability, vegetation, ecosystems, agriculture, livelihoods and water security all need to be considered together. Effective drought monitoring therefore requires combining different data sources and translating them into locally relevant thresholds that can trigger early warning and concrete action. Monitoring should continue through impact assessment, allowing institutions and communities to learn whether the measures taken were effective. He also emphasized that drought is not limited to traditionally dry regions : even relatively water-rich regions, including parts of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, can experience severe drought when water is not available at the right time and place.
Amélia Francine BAZI emphasized the importance of connecting water security, land restoration and community-based action. Her contribution highlighted the need for integrated approaches to drought resilience and drew on experiences from Burkina Faso and Mali, where AutreTerre is active.
A particularly important outcome of the discussion was the call to close the data-to-community loop. Participants stressed that generating data and developing digital technologies is not enough : information and analysis must ultimately be returned to local communities in accessible, understandable and actionable formats so that they can support local planning and decision-making and trigger timely action before drought impacts become severe.
Participants also recognized youth as actors and partners rather than merely beneficiaries, calling for their involvement in implementation, innovation, monitoring and decision-making. The discussion further encouraged the use of multidimensional drought information and the combination of different data sources to improve preparedness, early warning and resilience planning.
Finally, participants emphasized the value of indigenous knowledge as a global resource. Successful practices developed by communities in the Sahel and other dryland regions should be shared and adapted to other regions according to their own climatic and ecological realities, including soil, relief, rainfall and local environmental conditions.
The side event concluded with a call for stronger collaboration among governments, technical institutions, UNCCD stakeholders, youth networks, civil society and local communities. Continued knowledge exchange through the UNCCD Community of Learning and Practice Africa and partner networks was identified as an important pathway for promoting practical, community-based and scalable solutions.
The overarching message was clear: drought resilience requires connecting water security, land restoration, data, innovation, indigenous knowledge and meaningful youth participation, and ensuring that knowledge ultimately leads to timely decisions and action on the ground.
