 to the COP14 to develop technical guidance on that topic. Before you start, Orelie, for everyone who's just joined, if you would prefer to listen to this session in French or Spanish, please do make use of the translation button which you can find at the bottom of your Zoom screen. And with this logistical note, Orelie, it's my pleasure to hand over to you. Thank you, Jess. Are you seeing my screen? Yes, I do, thank you. Okay, thanks. Dear participants, panellists, colleagues, it's a great pleasure to be presenting the technical guide today, also because, as it was mentioned by my director, it's the result of a collaborative effort where so many UN organizations, but government CSOs, academia could have participated in. Let me change slide. Do have an issue to move on the slide. Sorry for that. Okay, here we are. So, it's been discussed a lot throughout the week and throughout the value CFSI event, but here it's important to understand that the VGGT has a soft, low instrument that has supported to be the basis of the decision of UNCCD, their nature of a voluntary framework, a negotiated one agreed upon by the government, the only global framework that exists on good practices to advance governance of tenure, where the key feature that have allowed it to be, to get to the decision of UNCCD's parties to encourage the integration into the convention. So, another key element that have lead to the decision and that are amongst the foundation of the technical guide is a scientific foundation where in 2019, the science and policy interface of the UNCCD have engaged into a key publication to see how enabling environment for land degradation, neutrality can be improved. Four elements were considered as key, namely the science policy interface, financial support to LDN, institutional arrangement, and policy and regulatory frameworks. For the two later, land governance is a key component of them. So, meaning that it brings also to the realization that governance of tenure is absolutely foundational to support LDN achievement. And in this, from this scientific foundation, it has led to the possibility to bring in the decision 26 at the 14th conference of parties of UNCCD, where parties have encouraged themselves to integrate the VGT into the implementation of the convention and have requested a technical guide to be created, to be formulated. And this was a very interesting exercise for all who have been part of it because it needed to bridge a gap between two words. A word where land is more a natural resource asset that needs to be cared of. And this is translated through SDG and indicators for instance within the SDG-15, but also within initiatives such as the ecosystem restoration initiative or the LDN target settings mechanisms through publication. And another word where land is a right is considered as a right, as a legitimate tenure right. And we will come back to that. And that was the word of the VGT, which is also translated in multiple technical guides that needed to all together bring into these technical guides supporting UNCCD party on how to integrate governance of tenure within their initiatives. So this has led to the formulation of the technical guide where the scope, we didn't want to make a 500 page technical guide, you wouldn't have been that easy to read. So the idea is to have a technical guide that is a comprehensive entry point. It gives a bird eye view. And the idea was that it addresses mainly to policy and decision makers. Once that say, the technical guide makes reference to plenty of other technical guides that have been published under the VGT is plenty of other publication that have been created not only by FAU but by many other partners that are relevant to go deeper and to give answer for potentially a second level audience which is land administrators and potential beneficiaries. Three consideration go all through the technical guide and they are important. They are at the core of also the VGT. One is that it builds on legitimate tenure rights. So as Jess was mentioning, those who are already in legal frameworks but those also who are socially legitimized. And this is at each country in each context that it needs to be seen which one are and how they can be recognized into law. A second key consideration that we see all through the technical element that we bring then after in the technical guide, the pathways, I will come to that. Is consultation and participation meaningful and from consultation and participation. So also taking into account needs for potential activities that will prepare this consultation and participation. And to have the third key consideration is to have a gender responsive approach. So going way beyond, it's not only the question of participation but also import participation of women. So really concretely how it translate into legal framework, into the participation, into targeted training where it needs, writing, literacy and so on. But first. Only you have four minutes left. Right, so thank you. I go a bit faster. The technical guide is built around nine pathways that I will now present. What were important to them is that they are voluntary, they can be country-made, tailor-made to national context. They are action-oriented. They respond to the why, how. So in each where you will find list of activities that can be both national and local level. Because often LDN initiative goes to local level. They are flexible. They are not only did for all context and we will see a bit how to see this flexibility. And they are rooted in the COP decision and in the VTGT text. There is a first set of four universal pathways. Meaning that we have considered that all LDN initiative could consider it in. One is to have a look into policy and legal framework in a way that do they recognize legitimate tenure rights? Is there any competition between LDN goals and tenure security governance of tenure security goals but governance of tenure goals? A second one is how to create coordination, policy coordination mechanism that are both vertical and horizontal in order to ensure that various sectors can be around the table, various stakeholders and also how can data can be shared in between those? Third one is about securing women's right and access to natural resources. And a fourth one which is absolutely key is when there are LDN initiatives, it may trigger a change in value of land. So it's very important to ensure that there is a setup from the onset of the initiative a grievance and dispute resolution mechanism to ensure that in case there are legitimate tenure rights that may be infringed upon, there is a way there is a mechanism that allows to bring that forward. Then after there are context-specific pathways. Those are designing tenure responsive, integrate participatory and integrated land use planning where legitimate tenure rights can be taken into into participatory land use planning processes. A six pathway looks particularly how can land banking and land consolidation be used to support LDN initiatives? And this is more in the context where land consolidation and land bankings as land administration tools already exist. And there there is the three last pathway, look at the various type of tenure system we may have. One is on public land, how can we recognize and document legitimate tenure rights on public land? How can it be done for the comments? And how can be rights and duties be strengthened on private land? And all that the idea for that what we wanted to present is it's a process to take into account those values process, those values pathway within an LDN initiative. We suggest in the technical guide that it may start by three type of assessment where the crossing result of a physical assessment meaning understanding what are the land degradation drivers in specific context, but also what is the land tenure challenges met in specific context and the gender link to access and rights on natural resources, specific challenges in this same context. Crossing these three, the result of these three type of assessments will help to see what can be the action and activities that can be taken upon in LDN initiatives. And with that and saying Jess, I thank you very much and ready for any question and very much looking forward to the panel. Thank you. Thank you very much Orelie. And I apologize for making you rush to the presentation. Thank you. Director Lee Fang Lee has already mentioned that very soon the technical guide will be available in all UN languages. Currently, if you want to check it out, it's available in English on both UNCCD and FAO websites. Now, I have the pleasure to move to the first panel discussion. The panel discussion is called moving into implementation, unlocking the potential of the VGT through land degradation neutrality. I will present the speakers in a row. The first one will be Daniel and Daniel will show it will walk us through what he calls a data story. So he will go first and then I'll introduce the rest of the panel. So Daniel Heybert is country researcher and engagement consultant at Land Portal. And he will present something that the Land Portal has recently compiled which is called the data story on litigation neutrality and land tenure. Daniel, I'm looking forward to your presentation. You have five minutes. Thank you so much. Yes, and good morning, afternoon, evening to everybody here online. I'm quickly putting, you should just see in the chat, in chat box, I've just put a link to the data story I'm going to talk about. And now I will share my screen. So basically what I'm going to do is we've just, let me go to the top. We've just published a data story through Land Portal looking from a data perspective that some of the potential linkages or challenges around placing land degradation neutrality next to land tenure security. I won't go through the whole story because it's a short presentation time. But what I would like to do is highlight three or four quick aspects presumably showing some of the challenges and some of the potentials. So you're hopefully seeing my screen now and I'm zooming down quickly. I'd like to stop here to start with. And what we have here, you may have, many of you may have already heard that over 100 countries have already set landed LDN targets. And we highlight a few here to actually kind of show that they can be quite different in appearance. So for example, for Benny, which we'll come back to later, we, here we are. We can see the main target is the restoration of at least 50% of land degraded from 2000 to 2010. And limited to 5% and limit to 5% the loss of non degraded lands. Now, what we see here, we see some quite precise figures put forward and certainly this gives the appearance of a country that is setting its targets with a significant sort of backup of data. On the other side, I can highlight Thailand which has a much more simple aim to increase the proportion of national forest cover through reforestation and rehabilitation of degraded forest. Now, the point here is that targets are set by countries themselves. There is no enforced mandate for how they go about this. And so I think one of the challenges that there may be different reasons why this variation takes place. But one of the reasons can be that there is a differing accessibility to data to inform these targets. So obviously this makes a significant challenge in terms of how we go about sort of coordinated approach to LDN. For my second, now I'd like to move on to a data view. You have two and a half left. Okay, we're halfway through. Thank you. So yes, I'd like to highlight the WorldCAD website here for, I think it's a very interesting view of land degradation data of satellite data. What they have here is like a dividing line and this will slowly load you see on both sides. And you can actually pick out of, I think 16 different data sets. And you can click on individual countries more specifically and you can see already as I move between the data from left to right is quite different. And these colors correspond to here. I'm not gonna go into great detail. The point being is that there is a wealth of mapping data, brilliant mapping data out there, but there are many different ways to interpret it, different parameters to set and so different ways that policy could be set. And I think this is a really good example of trying to work with the uncertainties. But of course what we don't have are the sort of more kind of nuanced social economic drivers of why this degradation is happening. Now, when it comes to supporting data on land tenure, it's more problematic. I highlight Pryndex as a very good data set on land tenure insecurity, but this is at country level predominantly. And so it's very hard to map against this very more specific degradation data. So there are major challenges putting together these kind of two fields in data terms. And for my last area, I'd like, I think what we do in the data story is highlight a case study put together by TMG research and APIC for forest area in northern Benin. And this is very interesting in that with using very localized household survey data, they really highlight how communities are operating in the forests and in many cases have land for 30 years that is unrecognized. There is a set of fees for land use through a participatory forest management plan. But actually what often happens is that forest officers are charging up to 10 times the amount unofficially for residents in the area to be able to use that land. And that's creating much tension. Now together with a zero tolerance policy of much reforestation work, what we see in this case is a major sort of a gap between recognizing tenure and producing reforestation projects to solve land degradation. I fear you have to wrap up. Okay, so I'll finish in a couple more sentences. And so I think what we conclude is that it's very interesting that this kind of localized research can lead to very specific data that can cross sides and involve communities who can gain tenure security from their involvement in LDN projects. So there's more in the data story. I do invite you to take a look and I'll leave it there handing back to you, yes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Daniel. Also, I think particularly thank you for blending the different types of data that exist. So I think congratulations for a job well done. If you want to explore the data story yourself, Lillian has posted the link in the chat. And my dear colleague, Kadeh Baba, I've seen him as the participant. So if you post questions in the Q&A session or in the chat, he might be able to respond to you as well. Thank you, Daniel, for your presentation. Now, moving to the other panelists. First of all, I'd like to introduce Marjorie Sanchez, who is the manager of the First Alliance at AIDER, former UNCCD civil society organization panel member. We have Elizabeth Brillant, who's a senior policy analyst at Global Institutions, Global Affairs Canada. Elizabeth steps in for Martin, who begs your pardon for not being able to be with us, but he's in plenary. And last but not least, we have Burdich Apel, who's the senior environmental specialist in the global environment facility. My first question goes to you, Marjorie. Marjorie, NIME has presented examples of how data on LDN and LEN tenure can progressively be linked and that this offers a basis for action to address these often, let's say unrelated worlds of tenure and sustainable land management that also already has been referred to in the beginning of her presentation. Now, the CSO panel was crucial in bringing the tenure issue to the UNCCD convention and has been actively involved in the consultations of the technical guide. What do the CSOs, what does AIDER see as the most important elements of the technical guide? Yes, thank you. Thank you, yes. Hello, everybody. Thank you also for the invitation to this side event. Yes, indeed the civil society organizations have been promoting land tenure security as a key element to be considered for addressing land degradation and in the context of the adoption of the voluntary targets for land degradation neutrality, land tenure becomes even more crucial. And this is the reason why we actively promoted the adoption of a UNCCD cop decision on land tenure that would open a pathway for further discussions and action within the UNCCD as an example is the technical guide. So, well, regarding the technical guide, specifically during the last UNCCD cop 15 held in Avian, May, we CSOs discussed on the potential contributions of the technical guide. And I would say that one of the most important elements that we have identified is that the technical guide adopts these three key considerations to be followed up by the countries for the design and implementation of all LDN initiatives. Legitimate tenure rights, the first one, consultation and participation and gender responsive approaches. For us, this is very important because without respecting the rights of all people using the land, including women, as well without a participation of all these diversity of actors in decision-making processes regarding to the land, it will be impossible to achieve land degradation neutrality targets. Therefore, for us, civil society supporting local communities on the ground, the inclusion of these aspects as the key considerations to be mainstream in the implementation of LDN gives an important message to the UNCCD parties, to the stakeholders and also provides an important framework for the application of the guide at national level. This is the most important element for us and I would also like to highlight that it's important that the guide is linking its pathways the pathways that has been also presented now with the relevant UNCCD COP decisions and with the VGT guidelines. So this is important in terms of providing the context of the international agreements that have led to the guide. And this will help to ensure that all the stakeholders engaged, maybe some of those has not been a part of the design and a participatory process, but they are going to be the ones responsible for the implementation, the application. So it will be important for them to have a better understanding of the background and these can make better alignment at national level also. And finally, yes. I'll give you a second chance in a bit. May I cut to short here or finish your sentence and then I'll move on. Yes, just to finalize that also we find in all the guide important topics like governance to manage common supporting collective action. So those are also very important elements from the point of view of CSOs. That's we recognize the value of its inclusion in the guide having also a specific pathway for addressing women's rights is very relevant. So I will leave you there. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Maria Aldi. Elizabeth, thank you very much for stepping in Larry very last minute. So we are very grateful to have you. Thank you, really. I'd like to begin by asking you about Canada's feminist international assistance policy basically building on the point that Maria Aldi has just made. What does this feminist international assistance policy imply in terms of financing projects on land rights, inclusive governance and litigation of travertine? Thank you, yes. Good morning, everyone. Martin Sensen's regard does already mentioned he's busy with the CFS plenary. So it's a pleasure for me today to share a few thoughts on Canada's experience in the space supporting land degradation neutrality efforts with a feminist lens. Before diving in, I'd just like to commend the UNCCD FAO and their partners for developing a practical and context-specific guide that emphasize the local ownership and participatory governance approaches to reach the UNCCD's objectives. We already know that in many countries, marginalized groups and people in vulnerable situations, in particular women have unequal and limited opportunities to access or own land. According to a UNCCD study released last May at the COP, 102 countries denied women's land rights. And this is pretty staggering considering that women produce the majority of the world's food and are active across food systems. To help address this, Canada supports gender transformative approaches to advance gender equality, sustainable agricultural growth and equitable resource management in alignment with Agenda 2030. Nationally, our feminist international assistance policy also referred to as the FIAP is underpinned by a human rights-based approach. So what does this all mean in practice? Well, we're making use of gender-based analysis to ensure that the differentiated impacts of efforts on women and men are taken into account throughout the project cycle. So from the perspective of land rights and inclusive governance, this means a greater emphasis on interventions that one, support local women's organizations and movements that advance women's rights. Number two, support women's leadership and decision-making to build resilience and sustainably manage resources. And third, strengthen legal systems and promote reforms that eliminate all forms of discrimination. And in order to deliver on these priorities, we have three main channels of programming and a range of investments, partnerships and advocacy efforts. So I'll just touch on three. The first one is focused on UNCCD. So we are providing institutional support over a number of years to strengthen the implementation of the Gender Action Plan, which includes a big component on women's lands rights and access to resources. While initial activities have focused on awareness-raising and training, we are excited that the UNCCD will enter partner with interested countries to facilitate progress at the national and subnational levels in this space. In terms of bilateral engagement, we also support in-country programming and for example, we are supporting the Canadian NGO Sokodevi in Columbia to create sustainable livelihood by increasing the income of smallholder farmers that farm cacao. And the project supports women's empowerment and their participation and production by helping to access land titles and address gender violence and strengthen their leadership. That's good. I would also like to give you a second question. Yeah, no, sorry. I'm really sorry for making everybody rush through the presentations, but we have a very rich program, and we want to make sure that our good could lead nearly up at the end. We're not left with 30 seconds, but a little bit more. Thanks a lot. No worries. I'll just say we also have research efforts, and we just wanted to build on food systems, resilience and inclusive land governance as a prerequisite for this. So I'll wrap up there. Thank you, yes. OK, thank you a little bit. Uli, you're up next. The Jeff supports about, if I understood correctly, 160 projects to address land degradation. And I think it's sort of also the questions that show up in the Q&A box refer to the financing question. So how does the Jeff ensure that the LDN projects that are supported by the Jeff actually corresponds with the VGTs? Uli, the floor is yours, and it's great to have you. Yeah, thank you, yes. And hello, everyone. Thank you for the question and the opportunity. First of all, let me start that the strategy of the Jeff in our land degradation projects is fully aligned with the LDN concept. So we are supporting the implementation of the UNCCD agenda through the LDN concept. And as you know, in the LDN guidelines, also the VGTD are playing an important role. They are referenced as a fundamental principle, good governance, and land tenure. So we are using mostly this pathway five that was mentioned by Uli to engage in comprehensive land use planning, including land tenure security. And this is really a common element in Jeff projects. And we really consider the VGTD as a best practice and really an important guideline to apply in project design and implementation. But an important point really is these are guidelines for governments, right? So they are there for governments to help their people to safeguard the rights to own and to access land. So what we can basically do is to make them aware, encourage the application and help with all the interactions that are necessary in the process, with interactions with local communities, with CSO, with indigenous people, and with all the stakeholders in the process. And if I can switch quickly to finance, I think one big opportunity we all have is to increase VGT related investments. And because this really also needs investments in, for example, in mapping, in capacity building, the measurement tools, catastrophes services, for example. So there's also a field where really investments are needed to bring this basically to the next level and to encourage application of the guidelines. So that's all for the time being from my side. Thank you. Thank you, Ali. Mario, I'd like to get back to you and the question is how do we ensure that the financing question that Oli has mentioned, I mean, there often needs to be accountability and sure that financing goes into the right direction. And I think I'm pointing this question at you because I think I would like to learn from you or probably the participants as well what would be the role of CSOs in the implementation of the technical guide? How do you see your supporting role in supporting governments and actually taking the implementation of the technical guide forward? Yes, well, currently a lot of civil society organizations are directly providing support and technical assistance on sustainable management, not only to local communities, but also to governmental organization and also to private sector organizations, sometimes at local, at national level, which means that CSOs have direct relation with the key stakeholders, particularly with local communities of course, and also that the CSOs manage information on practices, traditional knowledge, new technologies emerging from the ground and also in many cases, we have technical resources, logistic capacities, social support in areas which other organizations have some limitations maybe to operate or to reach the stakeholders in the ground. This is particularly at some national level. So on this sense, CSOs can play a very strategic role in raising awareness on the technical guide, first of all, at different levels, engaging state and non-stateholders in the process of technical awareness. We can also support reaching these local land users that have limitations, for example, to access internet and language barriers. It's very important to know that by the end of the year we will have the guiding in Spanish in other languages, but still it's important for some stakeholders to have this support for adapting the technical guide for the local context. And we can also play an important role in facilitating the process of making the guide more meaningful and pragmatic for every national context, every national challenge, and particularly to the sub-national level, I must say, local level, direct land users. Thank you, Des. Thank you, Mario. And thank you before highlighting the capacity building function, the translation function of how to actually use the guide at the local level. I think this is often a step that really is missed out in our discussions. Elizabeth, the UNCZ Land tenure decision, or the decisions now after COP 15, offer the opportunity to mainstream land governance in other sectors and funding portfolios, something basically the session especially special of that. How would you assess the opportunities and challenges that this mainstreaming brings for investments and responsible land profile? Thanks for the question, yes. There's lots to unpack on this one, and I think I'll touch on points that have already been made by other panelists. But maybe just first off, I'd like to note that we appreciate the UNCZ's ongoing work on inclusive land governance, and we were pleased to support the first ever land tenure decision at COP 14 and work since then. And so as already mentioned, parties have agreed that work is for the needed to integrate land tenure into the convention's implementation from both a policy and programming perspective. So I'll share a few thoughts now in terms of the challenges and opportunities that we see with mainstreaming. So on the challenges side, I'll start by noting that national level coordination can often be a challenge. Institutions often operate in silos and compete for limited resources. And as well like in our own department resources and responsibilities are spread across various institutions and at different levels. So this makes for some difficult work ahead of us and comprehensive issues are sometimes difficult to respond to in a coordinated way. In terms of complexity, the situation is made even further difficult when we consider complexities on the ground. So governance questions can be incredibly hard to address and are deeply affected by socioeconomic dynamics unique to each community. So therefore there needs to be a strong buy-in across the board at the political level as well as inclusive participatory processes to ensure local ownership and sustainability. I just quickly also like to touch on the point raised by Daniel on data just to say that the governance data gaps do exist meaning that we have limited ability to sometimes get a clear picture of the situation. And so it's important for decision makers and development partners alike to have knowledge of the dynamics on the ground to ensure that all the initiatives at the very minimum do no harm. On the opportunity side, we see the sustainable development at Denda's remaining a top priority in the coming years and the land and rights feature prominently throughout the SDGs. So there are natural linkages there for integration looking at rising food, malnutrition and hunger rates. They've been further fueled by a range of shocks and most recently the Russian invasion between Ukraine and so these compounding shocks demonstrate the urgent need to increase resilience by promoting food systems transformation and inclusive land governance is key for this as well as poverty eradication. Lastly, I'd like to mention that while public financial resources are increasingly strange, there are opportunities I think in particular on the climate finance side and this is linked a bit to the Jeff's work as well. So whether focusing on adaptation or mitigation efforts, policies and programming can help further prevent further ecosystem degradation and also bolster resilience for land users. So I'll end there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Elizabeth. And again, I apologize for being the one to rush to make your rush. I would ask our colleagues from FAO in particular the land tenure unit to please have a look in the Q&A box. There are some questions that are not necessarily targeted or directed at this panel but also refer to more country-level questions. For example, regarding the provision in Cameroon and their general principles of good governance. I see Orelie is already taking this on Francesca if you could also direct your attention to the Q&A box. This would be great. So with this, let's say rather logistical note, I'd like to come back to you Orelie. The Elizabeth has already referred to the project cycle and I think what would be important for us and for others to learn is from Jeff's experience, blending the world of tenure and sustainable land management is, as Elizabeth just said, extremely complex. So what are from your point of view the success factors in addressing tenure in project design and implementation? Thank you. Yeah, thanks. I think it's really a package and many of the elements have been already mentioned by other panelists. We need good governance is key. We need the solid data, attention to stakeholder involvement, CSOs, local communities. Agenda was mentioned as a very important element which we can also confirm from our experience. And knowledge management is also key. Among countries to sharing knowledge and experiences on this common management challenges of securing land tenure. One thing that I think we can also still improve and work on is to create a better track record of those success stories. For example, Vietnam is often mentioned as a success story. Also, I happen to know this case, there are probably many others, but really this country has managed to turn around the degradation story, so increase their forest cover. And I think one of the success factors is the attention also to securing land tenure, good land use planning and land allocation. And I think there are probably other success stories out there. We need to create a better track record also to show other countries that's the way to go if they want to address degradation and turn around the deforestation issues in their countries. Thank you. Thank you, Uli, for your concise answer. And I think I would have one question to all panelists, Daniel, Marioli, Elizabeth and Uli. The brevity of the session basically requested us to really speak in general terms about the global context. Maybe you could leave an example or one telling case in the chat box so that our participants have a chance to really follow up what you mean. For example, when you speak about Vietnam or Marioli, when you speak about the implementation of the local. So if you could leave examples that would illustrate these general points, I think this would be very helpful if you would use the chat box for this purpose then everybody can participate or can benefit from that knowledge. I'd like to thank you for the four of you. You have been a marvelous panel. And now for me, it's time to move from global to local or regional. And I am very happy to present our following to panelists. The first one is Asha Gebe, who is the Upper East Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency of Ghana and UNCCC's national focal point and Ombretta Tempra, who is the Human Settlement Officer and Land Specialist of the Global Land Rule Network and the Arab Land Initiative. So, one welcome to the two of you. And I'd like to begin with you, Asha. The technical guide was very well received... Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. The technical guide was very well received by the African group at COP15. And I think I would want to ask you to please be so kind to recall for participants the main messages the African countries want to convey with regards to the implementation of the technical guide. Thank you very much. And thank you to everybody. And thanks for inviting me to be part of you. In fact, the technical guide, as mentioned, was well accepted by the African group in Abidjan. But then we have some outstanding issues that we brought forward. We call for further capacity building and awareness creation to mobilize proposed concrete actions needed in the guidelines documents. We also call for consented efforts on the investment into the integration effort, which we see to be very key. And also we call for an established partnership in implementing the VGT. Collaboration is key. And also we call for the gathering of relevant data. Now, we've seen that they need for funding. I mean, attracting the needed funding from public and private investors to implement the VGT guidelines. It's one of the key issues. This is in terms of Africa assessment of environmental and social risk involving the implementation of the achievement of the LDN. It's a neat integration. It's very important for us. Now, there are issues about Ghana's example. If I'm giving the go ahead, I can mention those examples that we think can be relevant in assisting the vulnerable groups and the women in our communities in getting access to land in their lands rights. Now, under the, we recently implemented the Ghana, there's was now a land water management project and get supporting women to get access to land was very key. Now we introduce an innovative approach where women became financially empowered in a way. And so they no more would depend on their husbands or any other person to support them on their farms. And so this, in a way, helped them to get access to land. If I would introduce what we call the village savings and loss association concepts where we inculcated in them, that's the spirit of investment. And so they are able to invest and that funds are used to carry out sustainable land and water management practices under the projects. We also had this bottom up approach in under the sustainable land and water management project. In every community, we have the community water, water management committee. And so this water management committee, we have at least three women in that committee. And so within that committee, they championed the course of women, women access to land, women access to, in fact, fertile land so that, you know, they will not be relegated to marginal land. In the first issue, I made mention of finance was they are financially independent and powered. Now they have access to land without, you know, they have a say in that in every community. Now, let's approach it. May I ask you if you could turn to the other project in the second round of questions. Sorry for cutting your short, but I would like on better and the regional perspective first. Sorry, sir for cutting your short. Ambreta, you have heard from the, from the African parties and already from the very specific concrete national level and Ghana. How would you see that with regional initiatives like the Arab Land Initiative, Arab Land Initiative, Jesus Christ, Arab Land Initiative can boost the implementation of the technical guide in the region. Thank you so much, Jess. Good afternoon, everyone. So I think regional initiative are basically an intermediate step to bring global normative framework and tools closer to the member states and adapt perhaps to the language or the specific interests and priorities for implementation in a particular region. And also, as also previous speaker was saying, being a closer platform where lessons among countries can be shared for the purpose of learning what has worked and creating the momentum for joining forces for implementation. The Arab Land Initiative was created in 2016 to empower and develop capacity of national and regional champions so that they are better able to act on land governance in their communities and countries. And indeed this national and local ownership is crucial for tenure security, good land governance and land degradation neutrality because such engagement really to be successful will need to be sustained over the years or even over the decades and only local leadership can ensure that. So when it's not possible to go straight to country level yet, the regional dimension is a useful way to actually start doing four main action, I think are useful to be done by regional initiative. One is to develop and document field knowledge on land degradation neutrality with local researchers, but also grassroots and practitioners. And I just put in the chat a report actually, we just released a day on land degradation and conflict in the case studies from Sudan, Jordan and Niger. Secondly, as also was mentioned by FAO, the technical guides calls for three types of assessments to prepare the grounds for land degradation neutrality intervention, geophysical gender and land tenure assessments and regional initiative have undertaken some preliminary land tenure assessment. For example, I just want to recall the one from the African Union, the NELGA Network on Excellence on Land Governance in Africa, which just released a regional land tenure assessment for North Africa and ourself at the initiative we are releasing soon one in 11 countries on the Middle East, which can prepare the ground to go then now down to country and local level. Thirdly, definitely capacity development is a key area that was mentioned by previous speakers and this can be done in form of trainings, but also by adding land degradation neutrality content into the curricula that are taught in the universities and in the regional training institute that exists already in the regions. And lastly, also really presented the fact that land administration tools are key to prepare the ground for land degradation neutrality intervention. This I think was pathway six in the guidelines and definitely at the regional level we can give technical support on feed for purpose land administration and land administration intervention at the national and local level. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ombretta. And my dear panelists, we have only some minutes left because I really would want to give our dear colleague Giriam the chance to really wrap up. So Asha, I apologize for cutting your short, we were presenting another country example. So you have one minute to present that example and then Ombretta, I turn to you, Asha, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. And then we do continuous education. We educate the traditional authorities, the land owners so that we're able to break down the cultural barriers that limit human rights and access to land. And then we have read the story of Sierra Leone and we've realized that the implementation of the VGGT hinges mostly on multi-stakeholder approach. And this is an area Ghana will love to adopt. And then finally, funding is very key. Whatever we do, whatever we plan, it is funding. We don't have the resources. I mean, nothing can happen, come your way. And so we call for increased funding so that we can successfully implement the VGGT. Thank you very much. Thank you, Asha. And I think these panels are also a chance to connect. So I know that the Jeff replenishment was just recluded. So maybe you want to connect with Uli who could advise you on how to actually best channel then Jeff resources to that purpose. Ombraata, the VGGT, and I think this was discussed last week, also a blank, are based on binding human rights treaties and human rights standards. And from your point of view, what is that regional alliance could do to address the sometimes challenging question of enhancing accountability by the state vis-a-vis its citizens, which is often necessary if we want to move ahead with implementing responsible land governance. Thank you for these tricky questions, I would say. But we know that binding human rights treaties are monitored basically through global processes, the Human Rights Council, the complaint procedure and the special procedures, like as the special reporters. And then there are universal periodic reviews where countries routinely present for discussion their reports, and also the UN and non-state actor present their own. So in a way, this is really global and national processes. However, there are some scope for one, for example, India could be to table for discussion at the regional level, the reports and recommendation from the universal periodic reviews because neighboring countries might have similarities that they won't work together on. Then very importantly, there are the regional intergovernmental bodies like the UN Economic Commission, the African Union, League of Arab States and others that have a really very useful advocacy role in tabling priorities for discussion at their annual ministerial conferences. So these processes are all animated basically by national partners and professionals that are from the national level. And I think there is a role at the regional platform to create awareness and build the capacity of those experts, national stakeholders to better understand the aspects that are quite technical sometimes like land degradation neutrality and collect information and report and monitor them within these national and global processes that monitor the human rights treaties but also the SDGs and the voluntary guidelines. Thanks, that would be my answer. Thank you. Thank you, Amrita. Before Miriam, I give you the floor. I would like to turn the attention of our distinguished participants to the survey link to a survey monkey link that Neil has posted in the chat. So if you feel like leaving your comments, we will be grateful if you could do so using the survey monkey. And I think I have only one question that's left or two questions are left. One, Daniel, if you could have a look at the Q&A box by Helena on data on the UK. If you could please be so kind to have a look at that. And then we have a question from Dimitri from Gabon and I see Orelie is taking that on. So I shall not comment on that right now. Now Miriam, I've tried my best to ring fans and protect your time really. So you have five minutes left to conclude the session before my final words. Miriam, the floor is yours. Sorry, for everyone who doesn't know Miriam, Miriam is the chief of the policy and acceleration sector division at UNCCD. Miriam, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jess. And first of all, I want to thank all of our partners and the panelists for this wonderful and very thought provoking presentations. I was taking extensive notes, which I actually consider homework for the secretariat in fulfilling the mandates that our parties have given us to advance the tenure and degradation work streams. I mean, I don't really know where to start because there's a lot of things that are on the table, but let me try to unravel my thoughts in a very succinct manner before Jess tells me I have 30 seconds left. Number one, data. And thank you, Daniel, for the presentation. Data is probably what we are lacking the most, or perhaps the connection between the data and the action. I mean, to me, one of the questions like, do we know from the LNN targets, what's the status of that land? Is that land owned by somebody? Is that national land? Is that part of our municipalities, et cetera? And the short answer, I am very sorry to say and a little bit embarrassed to, is no, we do not know. And we may benefit incredibly from researching, from asking our parties, asking partners, governments to provide this data that will allow us to better support the policy conversations that they will have. Another reason why data is so important is because the tenure conversation is per se very difficult. I mean, tenure looks differently in every single part of the world. And then inside the country, we have 197 parties and then it looks different for each of them. And then inside the party, there are so many different regimes and so many ways related to land rights that it's very difficult to have the conversation. This takes me to the beauty of the VGGTs and the wonder, the miracle of the decision in the context of the UNCCD. Why? Because these two processes, the coming of security and then the conference of the parties managed to bring all these different national positions into something that is universal, that is yes, general but that is flexible and adaptable enough for everybody to benefit from it. And then in the case of the UNCCD, it is very clear from all the interventions that once you have secured tenure rights, the land restoration agenda is going to look much better, the outlook is going to be much better. I mean, capacity building, another issue, access to technology and everything has to do with the collective actions that we take to advance towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. I was reading very recently, and this was actually a surprise to me that the UNCCD, contrary to the UNRCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity, which are the sisters of this convention, they are three real conventions, the UNCCD is considered in many academic areas a sustainable development convention and probably the first one. So if you think about it and you couple it with the discussion around tenure rights and around human rights in general, then we actually have a very, very clear pathway as the pathways of the BGGT to advance in achieving sustainable development for all. It's a self fulfilling circle. So we are concerned with restoring the health to our soils, to our lands for our own development for to guarantee the subsistence of humans on this earth. But on the other hand, by doing that, you're actually promoting a better, a more harmonious and a better, the wellbeing of people around the world. I will, I don't want to do any disservice to anyone by not quoting, I will just refer to Juliet's remarks on youth and on the importance of bringing youth into this conversation as they are the ones who have to unfortunately carry clean of the mess and carry the torch towards the future. And I will finish with one quote. It's very terrible that I am quoting ourselves. I'm gonna quote the Global Land Outlook Second Edition. This is over flagship publication for the UNCCD, but in our six key message of the summary for decision makers, we wrote, this is about putting people front and center. And then I think this is something that the 10 year work stream reminds us every time. Yes, the UNCCD is about land, but in reality, it is about people. Thank you very much. Thank you Miriam. And I hope that all participants really enjoyed the session and would like to thank you for taking the time to participate in the tent. I think it really speaks to two key questions. The first one is how do we actually link the two sometimes challenging worlds of land tenure and sustainable land management? And I think not all land degradation or charity plans are already living up to the spirit of the voluntary garden. So I think the session that we've presented here today is actually a segue to start a discussion on how to better align. And second, the implementation of the voluntary or the further application of the voluntary guidelines should of course be fostered further within the context of the UN Committee on World Food Security. But I think the session has also shown that there are other global processes that can be used to advance responsible land governance in line with the principles of the tenure guidelines. I think this is what the session has shown. I would like to thank my fabulous panelists and speakers for their time and their contributions and to all participants for staying with us. I wish you all a very good day or remaining day and take good care. Bye-bye. Bye everybody, thank you.