India, Aug. 25 -- Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav has called for "diversified, adequate, predictable and sustained International finance" for land restoration and drought resilience, citing India's varied financing architecture. He said India restored 21.76 million hectares of land between 2011-2020, generating 1.22 billion person-days of employment.

"Land restoration is not a cost, but an investment in food, water, biodiversity, livelihoods and long-term resilience," Yadav said at the 17th Conference of Parties (CoP17) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar on Monday. He called for finance beyond public budgets and stronger public-private partnerships to address desertification, land degradat...