A GLOBAL COALITION TO IMPROVE SOIL HEALTH

27 August 2026, Ulaanbaatar | At UNCCD COP17 Mongolia, soil health was at the center of the agenda. It was present across negotiations, ministerial dialogues, side events, and the Action Agenda. The numbers give a sense of its scale: the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) network held 72 events alongside 90+ partners across the two weeks. 

27 August 2026 | The Youth4Soil network of the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) and the UNCCD Youth Caucus are pleased to announce the launch of the Youth4Soil Manifesto Implementation Guide and the Youth4Soil Manifesto Hub at the UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, at the Action Agenda high-level event Youth4Soil Manifesto and Celebration of the International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026.

The COP17 session, “Regenerative Agriculture for Land Restoration and Healthy Diets: Closing the Finance Gap,” co-organised by CA4SH and partners, brought together progress on two complementary initiatives under the COP30 Action Agenda — the Plan to Accelerate Regenerative Agriculture for Healthy Soil and Healthy Diets and RAIZ (Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation) — while exploring what is needed to build a stronger global business case for regenerative agriculture.

The session, “Advancing Soil Data and Evidence for Rangeland Restoration, LDN Reporting and Decision Making,” brought together perspectives on how soil information systems, harmonised monitoring approaches, open-data platforms and community-led monitoring can strengthen LDN reporting while making evidence more useful to practitioners, policymakers and investors.

CA4SH joined stakeholders working across the soil data landscape to explore how robust, accessible and harmonised soil health data can turn evidence into action — from informed decisions by farmers and land managers to stronger policy, national reporting and investment. The session highlighted both the challenges of fragmented datasets, limited interoperability and capacity gaps, and the opportunity to build soil information systems that support greater coherence across all three Rio Conventions while helping to de-risk investment in land restoration and soil health.