UNCCD COP17 – Restoring Land, Redirecting Finance: Repurposing Public Support for a Just Rural Transition

UNCCD COP17
Restoring Land, Redirecting Finance: Repurposing Public Support for a Just Rural Transition
27 August | 15:30 – 17:00  | MET-21
Organised by: Clim-Eat, IFAD, WWF International, Agroecology Coalition

Background

The Voices for Just Rural Transitions (Voices4JRT) project offers a direct answer: by redirecting public finance toward the priorities of the people who manage that land. Drawing on farmer-led evidence and placing it in dialogue with finance, agriculture, and climate leaders, this event makes the case that subsidy repurposing is the missing policy lever connecting soil restoration to food security.

However, repurposing public support will only deliver a just rural transition if redirected finance is matched with practical delivery pathways that reach the people managing land and soils and support nature-positive, resilient agricultural production.

This includes financing mechanisms that reduce risk for smallholder farmers, pastoralists, women, and youth; investment in restoration, extension, aggregation, rural infrastructure, markets, and value chains; and metrics that track whether redirected support is improving soil health, resilience, productivity, and rural incomes.

The session will therefore explore not only why public support should be redirected, but also how it can be channelled into investable, inclusive, and measurable pathways for rural transformation.

Objectives

Positioned to bridge Food Systems Day (27 August) with Finance Day (24 August), this event makes the explicit argument that soil health cannot be restored at scale without redirecting current public support that drives degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change.

The high-level panel brings together voices from finance, agriculture, and climate to model the “cohesive narrative” that Voices4JRT is seeking to create.

• Demonstrate the concrete link between agricultural subsidy reform, soil health, and nature-positive food system resilience, using evidence from Voices4JRT focal countries and Mongolia’s rangeland context.
• Elevate farmer and civil society priorities from the ground to inform policy design.
• Generate specific and actionable asks directed at the governments and financial institutions present at COP17, while discussing how these can be translated into national policies.
• Contribute to the Riyadh–Ulaanbaatar Action Agenda with commitments on redirecting agricultural public finance, and link to and inform the Special Ministerial and High-Level Event on Food Systems and Soil Health taking place on the same day.
• Create linkages with the upcoming CBD COP17 and UNFCCC COP31.

AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia was one of the panelists at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification COP17 Mongolia side event: Restoring Land, Redirecting Finance: Repurposing Public Support for a Just Rural Transition, held on 27 August 2026.

The discussion focused on a critical question: How can we ensure that public support and finance actually reach the smallholder farmers, pastoralists, women, youth, and rural communities who manage our land and food systems?

Panelists explored:

• What policymakers need to prioritize for a successful and just transition
• How redirected public support can reach farmers and rural communities in practice
• The barriers preventing finance from reaching those on the ground
• How to ensure that the transition is inclusive and locally led
• How these efforts can connect with global processes, including CBD Target 18 and UNFCCC COP31
• Policy actions such as CBD Target 18 and UNFCCC COP31?