The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has selected the Managing Director of Bigpot Consulting as the National Consultant responsible for supporting the Government of Malawi (Department of Forestry) to implement the second phase of Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Program (LDN TSP 2.0) scheduled for implementation from January to December 2024. The UNCCD designed the LDN TSP 2.0 to assist country parties to review, evaluate and refine their national Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets. More importantly, the intervention seeks to help member countries to move from commitments to the ambition to action through strengthening land governance and land use planning, and spatial mapping of the targeted land and monitoring interventions aimed at avoiding, reducing and reversing land degradation in specific locations.
Malawi is among the 18 countries that were selected for participation in the LDN TSP 2.0 and the related GEF Enabling Activity project “Integrating Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) into land use planning frameworks to strengthen national UNCCD enabling environments”. The other 17 are Argentina, Benin, Central African Republic, Georgia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Republic of Moldova, South Africa, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia and Türkiye[1]. Similarly, the UNCCD selected the National Consultants through a competitive bidding process with one national consultant selected per country. The UNCCD has since capacitated the National Consultants and National Focal Points in concepts and strategies for initiating and managing national land degradation neutrality target setting processes via a three-day training workshop that was held at Radison Blu, Doha in Qatar from 20-22 February 2024.
The Bigpot Consulting family is thrilled to lead the land legacy in Malawi.
[1] https://www.unccd.int/news-stories/notifications/18-countries-selected-support-strengthen-ldn-targets-and-integrated-land