3.1. To increase the accessibility and effectiveness of ecosystem service and climate finance, Parties should recognize and reflect in decisions the need to value the conservation activities of nomadic peoples, local residents, herders, and Indigenous Peoples in terms of ecosystem services, including: (1) carbon sequestration; (2) soil protection; (3) biodiversity conservation; (4) water regulation; (5) monitoring and policy engagement; and (6) risk reduction of drought and dzud, and to link these to financial mechanisms such as the Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund, and the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund.
3.2 Financial mechanisms should be directed toward supporting the adaptive capacity and sustainable livelihoods of local residents vulnerable to drought and land degradation. Social protection policies and services that strengthen the adaptive capacity of herders, women, children, youth, and the elderly vulnerable to drought and land degradation risk should be recognized as an integral part of sustainable land management. Policy-making should take into account the impact of drought and land degradation on people’s psychological wellbeing, livelihoods, and the sustainability of local development.
3.3. Guarantee social protection and adaptation measures. Any drought protocol or framework document adopted at COP17 must include adaptation measures and social protection provisions targeted at herders, local residents, women, children, youth, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups. In particular, the caregiving burden borne by herder women, household-level vulnerability, and food security should be taken into account. These provisions must reflect herder women’s caregiving burden and household-level vulnerability, and must be aligned with the land tenure decision adopted at COP16.
3.4. Establish a direct, accessible financing mechanism. Global investment needs $2.6 trillion by 2030, but the $12 billion raised in the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership is a significant gap compared to the $355 billion needed annually, with the private sector contributing only 6%. We therefore call for drought financing mechanisms to include low-barrier mechanisms that local herders, women, youth, the elderly, and civil society organizations can access directly. Given the persistent gap between the investment needed to address land degradation and drought globally and the actual financing, the accessibility, efficiency, and local-level reach of existing resources should be increased.
3.5. Direct green investment toward the regenerative capacity of nomadic livestock husbandry. Nomadic livestock husbandry is a vital system for protecting dryland ecosystems, reducing land degradation, sequestering carbon, and supporting local livelihoods. Therefore, green investment, technology, and innovation support directed at nomadic livestock husbandry and sustainable pasture management should be increased.
3.6. Provide financing to support rural residents’ livelihoods and mental health. Drought and land degradation are not only environmental issues, but issues of human livelihood and mental health as well. We therefore propose that funding should prioritize supporting the livelihoods of herders and rural residents, particularly young herders, as well as opportunities for sustainable livelihoods and psychosocial support. This will provide a pathway to reducing forced migration, strengthening local resilience, and improving sustainable land management.
3.7. Ensure the benefits of restoration are fairly shared. Policies that ensure equitable access to economic benefits from restoration, afforestation, and green jobs for women, youth, the elderly, and local communities need to be supported. Financial and technical support for increasing herder women’s income and for micro and small businesses that process and market livestock products will help diversify livelihoods.
3.8. Strengthen the participation, financing, and oversight of civil society organizations. To ensure the implementation of Decision 5/COP.16, financing to support civil society participation should be increased. Furthermore, the process of establishing Indigenous councils demonstrates that meaningful participation requires not only political will, but also tangible financial support for participation, representation, and capacity building. Therefore, it is important to establish mechanisms that allow civil society organizations to monitor, oversee, and participate as observers in the commitment, disbursement, and access of international funding.
3.9. Support the participation of the elderly and traditional reform. Recognize elder herders, elder women, and community elders not only as those at risk, but as responsible custodians of the land and decision-makers, and support initiatives to document their traditional knowledge of proper pasture use, restoration, and water protection and to pass it down and hand it on across generations.
3.10. Integrate the voices of diverse social groups into policies. Include mechanisms in the documents to be adopted at COP17 to listen to the human rights concerns of women, children, the elderly, and youth affected by desertification, land degradation, and drought, and to identify and incorporate these concerns into policies.
3.11. Strengthen systems for collecting and analyzing data disaggregated by sex, age, and other social indicators. In line with the COP16 gender decision, gender and human rights assessments should be conducted to improve sex- and age-disaggregated data to reflect the differential impacts on women, men, youth, older persons and other groups when assessing the impacts of land degradation, drought and desertification.
3.12. To make the principle of supporting women and youth leadership effective in sustainable pasture rights and their management, Parties should recognize and reflect in decisions the need to: (1) increase the participation of herder women in decision-making by at least 40 percent; (2) develop youth leadership and expand their opportunities for choice; (3) mobilize and pass down the traditional knowledge and experience of elder herders; and (4) make access to digital-technology-based information an integral part of policy.
3.13. Integrate social diversity and differential impacts into policy. Drought, land degradation, and desertification do not affect everyone equally. Herder women and men, youth, children, the elderly, local residents, and other groups experience these impacts differently and face distinct risks and needs. This Statement therefore does not prioritize one group over another, but instead seeks to recognize these differing needs, experiences, and vulnerabilities, and to ensure they are fully and equitably reflected in policy, planning, and financing decisions.