SLMP - II

4/09/2017 UNCCD News

Ordos, 12 September 2017 – The Land Degradation Neutrality Fund (LDN Fund) was launched on 12 September 2017 at the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP13) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ordos, China.

With an initial target size of US$300 million, the LDN Fund is a first-of-its-kind investment vehicle leveraging public money to raise private capital for sustainable land management and landscape restoration activities worldwide that contribute to the achievement of land degradation neutrality, one of the global targets under Sustainable Development Goal no. 15 ‘Life on Land’.

Opening the launch event, Monique Barbut, UNCCD Executive Secretary highlighted: ‘The LDN Fund is a very innovative instrument that we developed over the past three years through the Global Mechanism in close collaboration with Mirova and numerous partners from the public sector, the private sector, and civil society. We are proud to see it enter into the operational phase as it will significantly increase finance for transformative projects addressing land degradation.