Blog #6 - An Eventful Month of June

Combatting Drought and Desertification

One of the standout events was the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Drought and Desertification Day celebrated globally on 17 June. A series of events were also part of this global convention observance.

UNCCD youth workshop: “United for Land – messages from Youth Voices towards UNCCD COP 16”

On Sunday 16 June 2024, INTERFACES PhD student Dorcas Sanginga Alame and visiting PhD student Faith Chihumbiri joined other youths around the globe in a workshop to discuss their vision for land management and formulate a common message. In this workshop, hosted at the Federal City of Bonn’s Old Town Hall, youths engaged in high-level panel discussion and developed recommendations that were presented at the Global Observance on 17 June and will be directed towards the 16th Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD (2-13 December 2024).

UNCCD Global Observance Day: “United for Land: Our Legacy. Our Future.”

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), in cooperation with the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Federal City of Bonn, hosted the Global Observance Event of Desertification and Drought Day 2024 on 17 June 2024. This event brought together land lovers, land heroes, experts, policymakers, and activists from around the globe to analyse at the past, look at the present and shape a better future for our land.

A number of members from the “Sustainable Land Management in Sub-Saharan Africa” consortia attended the Global Observance Event.

Panel Discussion: “Science in Support of combatting land Degradation”

Following the UNCCD Global Observance Event, the INTERFACES team at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) hosted an engaging panel discussion and interactive marketplace to foster exchange and science policy-practitioner networking among different organisations on the topic “Science in Support of Combatting Land Degradation”.

Please find the accompanying blog post here and posters from the interactive market place can be found here.

Core Communications: call to D-Groups

The INTERFACES team also had a discussion on D-Groups: how to this platform more effective for the SLM consortia and how to foster exchange across communities of practice. The following steps forward were identified:

1. All consortia project members are herewith invited to join D-Groups. A brief introduction into D-Groups can be provided (dates tbd).
2. A call will follow to identify and schedule 3 discussion topics with experts to moderate the discussion on D-Groups.
3. Based on engagement and interest, sub-communities will be established through which the expert facilitators take ownership as administrators of the sub-community.

ZEF public Lecture

To cap these events, a ZEF Public Lecture titled “The Knowledge Management for Agriculture Development (KM4AgD) agenda for Africa” was delivered by Benjamin Abugri and Dorcas Sanginga. Insights were shared on the Knowledge Management (KM4AgD) Challenge and Conference initiative and it was highlighted that several consortia members joined the FARA KM4AgD Challenge and hosted several Knowledge Cafes on topics such as capturing indigenous knowledge in science, policy and practice. Five members from the BMBF-funded projects will be developing knowledge products on thematic challenges that will aid the projects in their scaling ambitions. These knowledge products will be presented at the Science and Partnership Conference in July 2024.  The recording of the lecture can be found here.