The DDD 2024 will focus on the transformative power of healthy land for addressing today’s most pressing and interconnected challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss, food and water security—a blueprint for providing future generations with a healthy planet. Germany will host the next Desertification and Drought Day on 17 June 2024 (DDD 2024), which will also mark the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Good morning everyone welcome on this nature land use ocean day here at the land and drought resilience Pavilion to the desertification and drought day 2024 launch event my name is gasha I am a unccd land hero and I’m delighted to serve as moderator of this launch event for the 2024 desertification and drought
Day which is going to be a very special one because it is the 30th anniversary of the unccd adoption from way back in 1994 now personally this is also very special for me because my first ever engagement with the unccd was on desertification and drought day in 2012
As a 12-year-old so I’ve quite literally grown up knowing the importance of this day to spread awareness about land degradation neutrality why it’s so important to achieve it and why we must achieve it now so without any further Ado I would now like to invite uh to the
Stage the executive secretary of the UN convention to combat desertification and drought Mr ibim Theo to deliver his welcoming [Applause] remarks thank you very much uh for this I it’s actually moving to know that you started this journey while you were 12 it’s amazing um and um welcome all to
This uh and I think we are on we are live as well so for those of you who were not who are not able to join us here please know that we are here today to have a special event on desertification on drought day which is 17th of June every
Year for almost 30 years now we have been working together as part of the Rio conventions one of the Rio conventions is the desertification convention which is headquartered proudly headquartered in bone and we are very happy to call Bor as home and uh what I would like to do first is to
Welcome you all and to first and foremost welcome the state Secretary Yan flashback who is uh with us today and uh maybe making making a very special announcement so I’ll come back to on stage but for now I would like to welcome the German authorities starting with uh the SEC state Secretary [Applause]
Welcome uh excellencies um ladies and gentlemen executive secretary dear friend Ibrahim and dear friends uh friends um of soil let me put it that way because it has another side of the coin uh droughts and acidification are that in which we are moving uh when we are losing fertile
Soil uh and um as you know Ibrahim this is very close to my heart for a long long time uh for a long time uh this convention uh was the CCD was highly underestimated only over the recent years uh policy makers more and more understood uh how relevant this
Convention is basically it’s at the heart of everything uh if you want to keep hold of biodiversity loss you will not make it without protecting our soil and our land and stopping land degradation uh if you want to combat climate change uh you have to stop combating uh to to to losing fertile
Soil if you want to ensure food security around the world you have to hold what we have and you have to restore and nicely put here restoring degraded lands brings uh between s and 30 uh Dollar by investing just one uh dollar so it’s also uh it’s also obvious that we can do
Something uh and uh in this decade of restoration land restoration needs to be at the very heart this morning uh we had a side event on on the connect Nexus between food security and and land use and I was on a panel on pet lands and that immediately shows you how broad
This agenda is when it started um in 1992 30 years ago that’s why we are celebrating the anniversary uh it uh it was seen as an uh misleadingly was seen as an African convention people in the world thought this is an African problem land degradation uh and uh correct me if I’m
Wrong many many in Africa so so s so too but now we have a much broader understanding we know that everywhere on the world we are facing land degradation uh and I can remember uh when we discussed it the other times Ibraham that for for example looking at uh small
Islands I mean what they have the rarest Source they have is land uh so uh these few examples show how broad this agenda is how essential is to address it on on the high and highest possible political level Germany is very proud to host a
Secretariat uh I I think we um tried at least to be a good host uh and uh with the facilities in in Bon but also with the support we are providing to the convention directly but also through our programs uh addressing the the and and capitalizing on the agenda uh of the uh
Un CCD so um for example what we did over the last years with our support restored uh 700,000 hectares ferti land land and we have to continue with with that there many many initiatives because as long as we don’t stop it uh uh we will not address the different
Challenges um I mentioned so I want to be brief uh specifically as i’ been laid on this huge facility here in in Dubai um it is um next year’s um desertification and dto you mention it executive secretary it’s celebrated each and every year on the 17th of uh June
And at the same time in 20 24 it will be the 30th Anniversary uh of the UN CCD uh and it’s my pleasure and a special honor to announce today that Germany will host uh the desertification and draw day on the 17th of June 2024 and at the same
Time celebrating the anniversary 30th anniversary of this wonderful convention thank you very much Mr Theo and Mr FLIR and thank you for that announcement how exciting and we shall now hear a video message uh from the lady mayor of bond Miss kadia dner of Bon home to the United Nations
Convention to combat desertification I’m thrilled that Germany is hosting the desertification and tr day 2024 here in Germany’s United Nations city is a place where the debates on climate nature and land come together nature and land come together and from where crosscutting actions for implementing the 2030 agenda are
Advanced Land is a foundation of life on Earth our future and future societies will depend on our ability to restore our foundations of Life Today healthy land is critical for climate protection food security and sustainable development and we are already Beyond wakeup calls ladies and gentlemen I foolheartedly welcome the
Desertification atro day here in Bon together with the federal government of Germany and under the leadership of the federal Minister for Economic cooporation and Development Mrs fena schulzer I will be delighted to host a meaningful event engaging political Leaders The Land Community cultural stakeholders and the broader public
Alike and as our future belongs to the generations ahead I would very much like to see children and young people become an important part of our Outreach and action in Bon we will be very much looking forward to 17th June 2024 and to celebrating 30 years of unccd and 25
Years in born with a commemorative event that will have a lasting impact here in our city and far beyond thank you very much lady mayor for your message I shall now welcome back to the stage executive secretary Theo for his remarks isn’t it wonderful to have Germany unborn host the 30th iversary of
The unccd and 2024 desertification and drought day thank you Germany for hosting us thank you for hosting this very special day you know 17 of June is in the life of any executive secretary of the unccd a very special day it is like the anniversary
Of then a child now an adult reaching an age a respectable age of 30 and uh turning to the next cycle of their life the unccd was born out of the Rio conventions of the Rio process in 1992 then it took the International Community two years of negotiations and
Ratifications and it entered into force in 1994 this is why we are celebrating the 30th anniversary in 2024 the unccd is about land is about drought is about ecosystems is about people people it matters or you say peoples depending on which language you speaking whether it’s English or American or
Australian it is certainly one of the conventions that has human beings or human well-being as the foundation as its root it’s about food security we are dealing with issues like water without food there is no human being on Earth without water life even is even shorter for any
Human being but we will be with no honor if we had no clothes we tend to not really think that our fashion is also coming from Land many of us may not know that the healthy air we breathe is also partially coming from land and when land
Is degraded to the point where you have sand and dust storms then you realize that the air you breathe is not taken should not be taken for granted because the same land that is feeding us and nourishing us may be a silent killer if you are not careful and we go far into
The destruction desertification and drought day is more than one day it is not merely a celebration it is a symbolic of we as International Community coming together to actually Mark a pause and reflect on our relationships with nature on how we have been provided services that we think are
Free and we have always taken for granted and how we should reflect on the types of relationships we need to from that from now on to have with nature and and land we need to respect nature if not nature will react and if if it does it may be
Messy and we as Humanity have always extracted resources from the land we have always used our capacity and our inity to manage managing Water Resources managing land managing Landscapes perhaps we should even change our language because we should not be considering them as resources to be managed we should consider them as
Really our Capital without which there’s no money you can eat there’s no food you can find there’s no air you can breathe there’s no water you can drink desertification and drought Day last year was celebrated in New York at the headquarters of the United Nations in the at the general assembly of the
United Nations with the theme her land her rights the year before it was in another country remarkably organized and hosted by Spain with a theme related to Drought the year before it was in Costa Rica the year before it was in Turkey the year before it was somewhere else and the
Themes keep changing and any every theme we have is seen as extremely relevant so we are looking forward to the discussions and to the dialogues we will be having on 17th of June in bone this is our home this is where we live this is where you know just having the
Pleasure of working along along along the Rin River just having the pleasure of having the Clean Air you have in bone just having the pleasure of having the clean transport system and the timely systems everything is timed uh for me as an African I have a small problem with that because you
Don’t have any minute to be delayed you know we we have time in Africa so it is certainly uh a wonderful opportunity to be uh all celebrating in bone 7 of June I understand is also a very special day for Germany I was reminded of that so it
Looks like this day is a special day will be a special day for us 7 June is also a very special moment in Germany where climate talks are occurring and we will be very happy to work with our climate uh Secretariat colleagues to make an event and to organize an event
That will be meaningful 17 of June is also that week where dut Valley will be having a a big Gathering so I think we all together let me just say this and I’ll close please be in Born 17 of June 2024 because the world will be ring there
Because you will have special events in a very special place in the museum of bone uh you will have huge opportunities to interact but you will have also the history of the convention narrated uh and actually curated by uh the museum and uh the exhibition that will that
Will be taking place if you want to know more about the past but more importantly if you want to be an active partner in the future please be in Born 17 of June 2024 thank [Applause] you thank you Mr Theo and now may I invite both Mr Theo and Mr flas to the
Stage for the symbolic presentation of the next host of the desertification and drought Global observance in 2024 okay so as secretary said the last rout and certification day was in New York the of the United Nations in 2024 as by both of us announc we are very proud to H
It and on uh 17th of June in 2024 we are very proud to host it in Bon the UN Capital uh in Germany and uh it’s also for us um a very special moment to link in this uh way through through the CCD and through the drought and desertification day the UN headquarters
With the UN campus uh in Bon you see it here I think you also could spot your your office uh and uh it’s a pleasure my office is somewhere here somewhere there okay so uh welcome in 2024 everybody to the drought and desertification day in Bon thank you
Thank you and and we will sure the transportation will be there in time everything punctual uh you know a very good friend of mine uh the former uh head of the national parks in Kenya julus skipping told me once that he visited Bon and saw at the bus station
An announcement uh Buzz line leaving at 902 and he said this cannot be so he waited there and he was very satisfied that the bus was not coming on 9:02 but then he realized that on 903 everybody was concerned and worried and angry so that’s a bit of Germany okay thank you
All thank you thank you very [Applause] much thank you very much this concludes our event today and we for sure hope to see you at the desert of vacation and drought date 2024 in bond thank you Everyone