Aligned with UNCCD COP17's theme “Restoring Land, Restoring Hope,” this side event will examine how nature-based, water-smart approaches can restore dryland rangelands while strengthening pastoralist livelihoods, food systems, soil health, and drought resilience. It will connect science, pastoralist knowledge, policy, governance, and finance to scale community-led restoration, secure mobility and tenure, and develop investable livestock value chains that support land degradation neutrality.  
 
EVENT OBJECTIVES 
- Share evidence on rangeland and grassland restoration, resilient livestock systems, and water-smart approaches that position land restoration as a water-security strategy as much as a biodiversity or carbon one. 
- Identify policies and partnerships that prioritize women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities. 
- Explore blended and results-based finance to accelerate action.Draw lessons from diverse regional examples: Oran restoration in India, herder-led rangeland restoration in Mongolia, nature-based solutions for the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, and silvopastoral systems in South America 

KEY OUTCOMES 
- Priority actions for COP17 discussions on Finance, Water, Land & People, and Food Systems & Soil Health 
- Stronger collaboration among governments, development banks, research institutions, restoration-implementing organizations, and pastoralist organizations 
- A shortlist of scalable, investable restoration concepts — spanning blended finance, results-based finance, and market-based/private-sector models 
- Clearer pathways to move successful local restoration and finance initiatives to landscape-scale, cross-regional action.