UNCCD COP15 - Science Day
Science for Action: Land Restoration and Drought

Host: UNCCD Science-Policy Interface

 [ Recorded webcast ]

Organized by the UNCCD Science-Policy Interface, the Science Day brings together a diverse and highly engaged audience of participants, including scientists, policy-makers, practitioners, students, journalists and representatives of civil society organizations and development agencies. Under the theme of “Science for Action: Land Restoration and Drought”, the Science Day will focus on these two key issues on the COP agenda. The two main sessions will conclude with engagement for a pre-selected group of journalists.

Agenda

[PDF format - 249 Kb]

8:00 - 13:00

Session 1: Land restoration

Science Day Opening    
Speakers: SPI Co-Chairs - UNCCD Executive Secretary - Côte d’Ivoire Representative

Reaching a Desirable Future

• Setting the Scene
  Moderators: Nichole Barger & Noel Oettle

• Imagining a desirable future: harnessing the Theory of Change to shed light on the pathways (and the barriers) that could impact on achieving that desirable future
  Speaker: Graciela Metternicht

• Restoration of degraded cocoa-landscapes in Côte d’Ivoire
  Speaker: Christophe Kouame 

• Farmers are regreening African drylands – but how socially and ecologically sustainable is the functional diversity of what trees regenerate?
  Speaker: Fergus Sinclair

• Audience engagement    

• Moderator reflection
  Speakers: Lukwesa Burak and Moderators

What We Measure We Can Manage Better

• Introduction to the Session
  Moderators: Cheikh Mbow - Jean-Luc Chotte

• GEO-LDN: Supporting countries in monitoring land for planning and implementing LDN
  Speaker: Antje Hecheltjen

• Monitoring Tree Cover Across Africa’s Great Green Wall: Challenges and Opportunities
  Speaker: Salima Mahamoudou

• Innovative multidimensional and multiscale assessment method to foster agroecological transition to restore the multifunctionality of land
  Speaker: Eric Scopel

• Audience engagement
  Speakers: Lukwesa Burak and Moderators

Coffee Break    

The Next Generation of Key Actors

• Setting the Scene
  Moderator: Ermias Betemariam

• Capacity Development and Stakeholder Engagement on Biodiversity and Land at the Science-Policy-Practice Interface in the African Context
  Speaker: Sara Velander

• Global Landscapes Forum Restoration Stewards
  Speakers: Adrian Leitoro

• PhD programme aimed at strengthening national scientific capacities in developing countries to combat desertification and drought
  Speakers: Meron Lakew Tefera - Chiara Ceseracciu

• Audience engagement
  Speakers: Lukwesa Burak and Graciela Metternischt
  

• Press engagement
  Speakers: Press along with speakers and moderators

13:00 - 16:00

Session 2: Drought

IPCC AR6 – Implications for Drought Risk

• Opening of session
  Moderator

• IPCC WG1 – the Physical Science Basis
  Speaker: Sergio Vincente-Serrano

• Governance and Drought: The Gender Perspectives
  Speaker: Everlyne Nairesiae

• Q&A with panelists
  Speakers: Lukwesa Burak - moderators and speakers

Measuring Progress Towards Drought Resilience

• Opening of the session
  Moderator

• Assessment of Resilience of Ecosystems and Communities to Drought – SPI 2019-2021 report
  Speaker: Mark Svoboda

• Regional law, national implementation: the case of drought monitoring and management in Italy in the frame of the European Directive on Water Resources
  Speaker: Silvano Pecora

• Drought resilience through agroecological approaches: the case for better support to  community-based initiatives in drylands 
  Speaker: Natalie van Haren

• Understanding Drought Resilience with LandPKS
  Speaker: Jeffrey Herrick

• Audience Engagement
  Speakers: Lukwesa Burak and Moderators

Nature Based Solutions for Drought Risk Reduction

• Opening of the session
  Moderator

• Investing NbS for Drought
  Speaker: Chris Magero

• Drought relevant SLM practices from around the globe
  Speaker: Tatenda Lemann, Nicole Harari
  

• NbS and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
  Speaker: Lisa Janishevski

• NbS in the Volta Basin Flood and Drought Management Project
  Speaker: Albert Goula Bi Tié

• Panel Discussion
  Speaker: Lukwesa Burak, Moderators, and Speakers

16:00 - 17:15

Closing session: Reflections on Science Day

• Reflection from Graphic Recorder
  Speaker: Stéphanie Heckman

• Reflections from a Journalist
  Speaker: Lukwesa Burak

• Final Comments
  Speaker: SPI Representative

• Press engagement
  Speakers: Press with session speakers and moderator

Selected photos

All photos by: IISD/ENB | Matthew TenBruggencate
Source: https://enb.iisd.org/rio-conventions-pavilion-unccd-cop15/14-may-2022