Healthy soil is the cornerstone of sustainable development, playing a crucial role in providing ecosystem services, achieving food and nutrition security for all, and climate regulation. Its significance can be underscored through the lens of the three Rio Conventions: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Each convention addresses a distinct but interconnected aspect of environmental sustainability, but what remains constant is the critical role that scaling global soil health plays in achieving the objectives of the conventions.

To hone in on soil as a holistic approach to global environmental challenges, we have summarized some of the ways that healthy soil is central to the objectives of the Rio Conventions and outlined some of the key ways forward.

This month, the CA4SH SteerCo met for their third meeting since it’s inception, and the CA4SH Secretariat hosted the second Quarterly Partners Meeting of 2024. With the alignment of the six-month mark of the year, and these two important meetings for strategizing, collaborating, and sharing experiences, this is a great opportunity to reflect on where we are and where we are going for the rest of the year.

To bridge actions between the UNFCCC and UNCBD, CA4SH and partners WWF, UNEP,  the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, CGIAR, CIFOR-ICRAF, Biovision and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade co-hosted a roundtable luncheon on the sidelines of the UNCBD Twenty-sixth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (STTA26). The luncheon was called Food Systems Transformation & Land Use Change: Unlocking the potential for enhanced synergies and finance through NBSPAs and NDCs, where attendees joined a group discussion on how aligning the UNFCCC and UNCBD could unlock and enhance synergies and scale-up financial support at the national level to enable food systems transformation.

CA4SH is a multi stakeholder partnership of member states, the private sector, research institutions, civil society, farmer organizations, multilateral organizations, NGOs, and more. Drawing on this wealth of knowledge, we organized the first installation of our 2024 Webinar Series: The road ahead for soil health action.

From 26 February to 1 March 2024, the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) took place at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss global environmental policy amongst the 193 Member States.

The discussions centred on how multilateralism can help tackle the triple planetary environmental crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, pollution and waste. Luckily, we know well of a solution to these challenges and, indeed, all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: scaling soil health, globally.

Learn more about CA4SH engagements at UNEA-6.

21 FEBRUARY 2024: The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) Steering Committee met to discuss actions and foci for the coming year.

Moving forward, CA4SH is committed to keeping soil health in the agenda, scaling it to other arenas (e.g., UNCBD, UNFSS), and further articulating its presence, while moving forward through implementation on the ground and resource mobilization.

On September 13th, the Coalition of Action for Soil Health (CA4SH) brought together partners from the public sector, research institutions and more to exchange ideas and provide updates on their efforts to scale up soil health globally.

A new brochure, Through the Lens of Drought, details highlights, outcomes and the way forward for advancing sustainable solutions for land restoration and drought resilience in the wake of the UNCCD COP15.