Nigeria, Aug. 27 -- As negotiations continue at the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the challenge of financing land restoration remains central to efforts to tackle desertification, drought and land degradation.

In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES on the sidelines of COP17 in Mongolia, Louise Baker, the Director of the UNCCD Global Mechanism, says African governments need to move beyond project-by-project funding and develop large, bankable landscape programmes capable of attracting public and private investment.

At COP17, about $1.3 billion in new and pipeline finance has been announced for rangelands, underscoring growing interest in restoration as an inv...