Leveraging Synergies from integrative land-biodiversity-climate action for improving monitoring, reporting, and investments into sustainable agri-food system transformations in Central Asia

About

The proposed study will seek to address the following mutually supportive set of specific questions, which will be discussed with the relevant national government organizations and policy makers during the launch of the study for ground-validation and fine-tuning, such as the extent and costs of land degradation in Central Asia and land degradation hotspots, as well as total financing needs and current funding gaps for restoring degraded lands in Central Asia, including under the national commitments for land restoration in LDN, NDC, NBSAP/GBF and Bonn Challenge action agendas. The project aims to identify degraded locations provide the highest returns for land restoration investments. The projects also aims to evaluate how the costs and benefits from the current segmented approach to land restoration compare with the costs and benefits of nationally coordinated planning and implementation.

Impact

Goals

-Demonstrating the social, environmental, and economic benefits of integrated land use planning under land use-climate-biodiversity nexus -Identifying hotspots for implementation of this joint programming (e.g., sustainable management and restoration practices) for the most cost-efficient implementation and achievement of national targets -Providing evidence-based advice for improving current integrative land use monitoring systems -Conducting a deep-dive case study in Uzbekistan, demonstrating the financial, institutional, and policy mechanisms how the land use-biodiversity-climate change synergies could be implemented into practices.

Objectives

The study aims to evaluate the costs and benefits of a joint national programming and coordinated implementation of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) regarding their land restoration and sustainable land management activities in the five Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Economic scenarios will be elaborated to demonstrate possible pathways to leverage synergies among the target processes, including on how financing can be pooled and invested much more efficiently to help close the funding gap for sustainable land management (SLM) and ecosystem restoration.

Impact pathways

The project will include activities the organization of inception workshop, regional analysis, preparation of Uzbekistan case study, validation workshop Developing the Central Asia policy brief, co-organizing a side-event and developing a methodological guideline for global application.