Reviving land and restoring landscapes

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) continue to influence global development policy in the coming decade. Under SDG15, Target 15.3 calls to “combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world” by 2030. As of May 2019, 122 countries committed to set national targets for a land degradation-neutral world (LDN). Preceding and parallel to the LDN process, the Bonn Challenge, the largest global initiative on restoration, was launched in 2011 to bring into restoration 150 million hectares by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. With 59 countries, subnational governments and private organizations having made pledges to restore over 168 million hectares, the support of regional initiatives such as the AFR100 and Initiative 20x20, and tremendous high-level political support across all regions, the Bonn Challenge has raised the profile on restoration across the board. This report shows through policy analysis in 13 selected countries that linkages and complementarity between the nature and objectives of Bonn Challenge pledges and the LDN targets are robust, therefore the opportunity to optimize synergies and impact needs to be realized. Pathway to this include strengthening (inter)sectoral coordination, consolidating reporting schemes for FLR and LDN, and aligning investments and actions within the national restoration agendas and LDN agendas.