While healthy ecosystems provide benefits such as soil health and fertility, natural water regulation, and carbon storage, the value of these ecosystem services remains largely unpriced and not adequately reflected in financial systems. This prefaces what we call the financing gap: while the world requires around one billion USD per day to restore land and build drought resilience to support healthy ecosystems, current investment sits between 70 to 80 billion per year. According to the UNCCD’s Financial Needs Assessment report, this leaves a vacuum exceeding 250 billion USD annually.

Why is it important to fill this gap? Investing in restoration and the prevention of land degradation is essential to reducing long-term losses. As financing remains reactive and focused on crisis response rather than prevention, slow-onset risks that can be managed and mitigated are left to become bigger financial problems in the future.

Join this month’s dialogue to discuss how engaging with non-traditional partners and scaling up private sector investment is a logical path forward, creating alliances that could be exponentially rewarding for both prevention and restoration outcomes and economic returns.

Session objectives

• Discuss the scale of the global financing gap and explore a wider range of funding sources, such as development banks and private investors.
• Distinguish the importance of shifting from a reactive, crisis-driven financing strategy to proactive investment in land degradation prevention and drought resilience.
• Preview future COP17 Action Day activities, including key discussion topics, focus areas for finance, and how to stay engaged with the conversation leading up to COP17 this August.
• Empower participants to engage with the financing conversation and advocate for greater investment in prevention-focused approaches in their communities and beyond.