About ELD
The Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative was established in 2011 by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the European Commission. The initiative is coordinated and supported by the ELD Secretariat, which is hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
ELD is a global initiative working at the interface of science, policy, and practice. The initiative recently entered its second decade of activities. More than ever, this decade needs to bring "Transformative Action for Land".
Our Vision
The ELD Initiative aspires to a world in which land is managed in a sustainable manner that preserves and restores natural capital including soils, water, and biodiversity, enhances ecosystem services, ensures climate-resilient landscapes and food systems, provides livelihoods, and secures the well-being of people and the rest of nature.
In this world, land degradation is at least net neutral and preferably significantly reversed.
Our Mission
The ELD Initiative makes the values of land count to inform, promote, and scale land solutions for transformative change. ELD is a global initiative that builds bridges between science, policy, and practice.
The ELD Initiative i) provides tools, approaches, and methods, as well as data on the values of land and ecosystem services that can inform land solutions, ii) promotes the use of transformative land solutions with global and regional studies as well as context and country specific assessment processes that include knowledge, evidence, and stakeholder engagements, and iii) scales its approaches developed and applied under i) and ii) with cross-country and cross-stakeholder learning, partnerships, capacity-building, and communication.
Our ultimate objective is to boost action and investment for sustainable land management and ecosystem restoration to bring us close to our aspired vision.
Our achievements over the last decade
