This Implementation Guide is an action and advocacy tool that aims to help youth and allied actors design and implement activities that help to achieve the global youth priorities, and align and integrate youth priorities in global frameworks. The Guide builds on the co-creation process that produced the Youth4Soil Manifesto. It draws on the contributions of over 250 youth individuals and 60 youth-led organizations across regions, gathered through surveys, consultations, dialogues, and a call for stories. The Guide highlights key recommendations, enabling conditions, entry points for specific actors, and resources to support implementation of the Global Youth Priorities.

Soil health information is a critical tool for identifying intervention areas to reverse land degradation, providing tailored fertilizer recommendations, and supporting policy processes, among myriad other benefits. Multistakeholder actors in Africa are already collecting data and sharing them with their wider networks, but many of these data sharing systems are limited in scope, cumbersome or locked behind institutional barriers. Fostering collaborative soil knowledge exchange could bolster the uptake of soil health data to drive evidence-based action on behalf of food systems, the environment, and people. Despite new continental momentum toward scaling soil health supported by data, there is limited stocktaking or documented baselines on current initiatives toward scaling soil health. This review seeks to address this gap and support the consolidation of efforts and initiatives at continental and national levels.

The results of this review can help prioritize and streamline efforts to build a collaborative soil data sharing community toward enhanced action in Africa under the Norad-funded initiative, Establishing an ecosystem of soil data-driven services.

Between 27 April and 10th May, 2026, #Youth4Soil engaged the cohort in Kenya in a data drive using the Regreening App to generate participatory, credible and standardized data while strengthening both scientific understanding and community action among youth. By engaging directly in data collection, youth became active contributors to evidence‐based decision‐making rather than passive beneficiaries of external interventions.

The experiences documented in this brief highlight how the initiative empowered youth with skills, credibility and advocacy capacity, positioning them as agents of change. The initiative fostered stronger youth networks and enhanced confidence, while the lasting impact will be reflected in improved soil practices, informed policies, and resilient communities that can better withstand future shocks.

This brief presents: 

1. The evidence base for soil health as a key indicator of rangeland restoration, resulting from improved and inclusive land governance which is foundational to rangelands restoration. 

2. Priority actions for key stakeholders.

3. Contributions to the implementation of Decision 29/COP.16 on rangelands and pastoralists, Decision 19/COP.16 on agricultural lands, and the Rangelands Flagship Initiative to be launched at COP17. 

4. Key Messages for COP17:  

This knowledge product demonstrates how soil health serves as a unifying foundation across the three Rio Conventions—the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—while contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It reviews the key policy mechanisms under each Convention and identifies opportunities to strengthen the integration of soil health into national implementation, monitoring, and reporting processes.

This policy brief outlines the case for policymakers to scale SISs and integrate monitoring of SOC in national reporting towards the goals of the Rio Conventions. It explores the context and need for advancing SISs to support voluntary targets laid out in national LDN, NBSAPs, and NCDs.

Operation, Management and Maintenance of tools.

Operation, Management and Maintenance of tools.

Conservation agriculture (CA) is an increasingly adopted production system to meet the goals of sustainable crop production intensification in feeding a growing world population whilst conserving natural resources. Mechanisation (especially power units, seeders, rippers and sprayers) is a key input for CA and smallholder farmers often have difficulties in making the necessary investments. The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through GIZ is implementing a global soil program “Soil protection and rehabilitation for food security” in seven countries, Kenya being one of them. This project aimed to facilitate the implementation of sustainable approaches for the inclusive promotion of soil conservation and for the rehabilitation of degraded soils.

Conservation Agriculture is a system which aims to produce high crop yields while reducing production costs, maintaining the soil fertility and conserving water. CA facilitates good agronomy, such as timely operations, and improves overall land husbandry for rain-fed and irrigated production.  It is a way to achieve sustainable agriculture and improve livelihoods.

The approach to the agroecological transition offers a practical and scalable pathway to transform farming systems into resilient, integrated production landscapes. Originally presented in a CIAT publication

(Sanginga and Woolmer, 2019), the approach was adapted to and tested in Ethiopia’s Highlands by the ProSoil programme, responding to severe soil degradation that undermines food security and rural livelihoods.

The “Dry Valley Rehabilitation and Productive Use (DVRPU)” approach supported within the framework of the global programme Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security (ProSoil) implemented by GIZ offers a comprehensive and innovative solution to address the root causes of land degradation, drought, famine, and poverty. Across Afar, Oromia, and Somali, where communities face increasing challenges, the ProSoil Ethiopia Lowland Soil Rehabilitation Project has played a pivotal role in promoting and implementing sustainable land management (SLM) practices. This publication compiles and documents three core SLM practices implemented under the project, serving as a knowledge repository to support continued learning, replication, and evidence-based decision-making.

En Tunisie, les régions rurales à vocation agricole, comme d’autres territoires de l’intérieur et des côtes font face aux défis croissants liés à la dégradation des sols, avec près de 47 % des terres menacées par l'érosion, et à l’épuisement des ressources naturelles. La Stratégie ACTA 2050, portée par l’institution publique dédiée à la conservation du sol, a mis en avant les PADIT : Projets d’Aménagement et de Développement Intégré des Territoires, afin d’engager les populations et faire émerger un travail collectif et de co-construction à travers des initiatives spontanées. Ces initiatives sont amenées à être intégrées dans un cadre d’intervention cohérent pour assurer leur viabilité et leur alignement avec les politiques de conservation des ressources naturelles. Il est ambitionné de promouvoir près de 30 PADIT par gouvernorat (région, total 24) sur une période de 10 ans.

Située en Afrique du Nord, la Tunisie accorde à l’activité céréalière une importance de taille pour sa contribution à l’économie nationale et à la sécurité alimentaire, avec plus du tiers de ses superficies agricoles et la moitié de sa force de travail agricole. Caractérisée par des conditions semi-arides à arides dans ses régions centrales et méridionales, cette activité agricole fait face à une vulnérabilité certaine face aux effets du changement climatique. Depuis plusieurs décennies, en effet, la dégradation des sols agricoles s’est accentuée sous l’effet combiné de l'érosion, de la désertification et de la perte de fertilité, aggravée par des pratiques agricoles inadaptées. En outre, le changement climatique se manifeste par une baisse significative des précipitations et une augmentation des épisodes de pluies torrentielles sur tout le territoire, rendant la production agricole plus incertaine. Dans ce contexte, l'intégration de solutions agroécologiques apparaît essentielle pour préserver les ressources naturelles, restaurer la santé des sols et assurer la durabilité de la filière des céréales.

En ciblant cette activité, l’approche adoptée s’inscrit dans une dyna-mique d’alignement à la Stratégie ACTA 2050 afin d’offrir une réponse adaptée aux besoins des agriculteurs soucieux de meilleurs rendements et d’une meilleure viabilité.

This handbook is prepared as a guiding manual for decision-makers, technical functionaries, field staff, and civil society working at local and district levels to contextualise best soil and water conservation methods for ensuring sustainable soil management, water conservation, and climate change mitigation. This Composite Resource Sustainable Soil Management (CRSSM) handbook, explains the rational of Sustainable Soil Management (SSM), focusses on enabling participatory and decentralized processes for planning, designing, and executing the SSM technology. It will also help field practitioners for improving the existing planning and financing mechanisms, building capacities, and strengthening cooperation between sectors, government departments, and all other implementing functionaries, and finally implementation of CRSSM. The idea of this handbook is to present CRSSM process in a manner which will be participatory, inclusive, climate-resilient, adaptive, and leaves no one behind. 

Derived from decades of learnings from on-ground interventions in Madhya Pradesh, ProSoil project has created an integrated landscape approach called the ‘The Mandla Model’ to scale up Natural Farming. This document details the evolution of this approach and learnings that can be applicable in scaling up on Natural Farming practices in other locations within the country.

For Gram Panchayat - Jawla, Block - Jamkhed District - Ahmednagar, Maharashtra 

Developed under the project Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security in India (ProSoil) 

The ProSoil project together with the Madhya Pradesh State Rural Livelihood Mission has developed e-Prakriti, a GIS-based planning tool to facilitate efficient and timely planning of scientific based-natural farming practices.

The e-Prakriti app is a planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning application designed for seamless implementation of natural farming practices.

It aims to enhance the effectiveness of agricultural initiatives through advanced monitoring and learning mechanisms.

It is available as an easy-to-use mobile app for community resource persons (CRPs) in the field. It also features a comprehensive dashboard for managers and executives.

The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) grew out of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). The objective of the Coalition is to scale soil health globally. Download the brochure to find out more.

Healthy soil and land underpin food security, climate resilience, biodiversity and livelihoods, yet decisions about land use, especially in rangelands, are often made with limited or inconsistent data. This research highlights the scale of the problem by reviewing existing rangeland monitoring frameworks, standards and remote sensing platforms, revealing significant gaps and a lack of harmonization in how land health is measured and reported.