Following General Assembly resolutions A/RES/74/220 and A/RES/75/218, the President of the General Assembly, with the support of the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, will convene a High-level Dialogue to assess the progress made in the fight against desertification, land degradation and drought and to map the way forward in the light of the UN Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, which ends in 2020. The Dialogue will take place on 22 April 2021 (tbc) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The main objectives of the Dialogue, among others, are to:
 • keep momentum on addressing DLDD challenges, with a view to accelerating SDG implementation and COVID-19 recovery efforts, contributing to ecosystem restoration, and climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience, by using land restoration as a key entry point.
• build upon the commitments and initiatives from Member States and stakeholders made during the Summit on Biodiversity, along the path to the CBD COP15, UNFCCC COP26, and the UNSG 2021 Food Systems Summit
• Encourage all UN Member States to adopt and implement Land Degradation Neutrality plans and associated Disaster Risk Reduction Plans, to guard against future systemic health or environmental crises.
• Call for countries to support the LDN Fund to further UNCCD action on land restoration.
• Highlight best practices and encourage partnerships with existing mechanisms and initiatives and identify new stakeholders to upscale work on DLDD.
This consultancy aims to achieve robust engagement of the international communities, United Nations organizations and CSOs in activities on and towards the Dialogue. At the same time, it seeks to leverage the event to raise awareness among the general public on the issue, leading to increased recognition of SDG 15.3 on land degradation neutrality as an accelerator for achieving multiple SDGs.