By Mandukhai Tsogtbal, Green Mongolia Hub (Mongolia)
For me, COP17 was more than an international conference. It was a personal milestone: the UNCCD was meeting in my home country, and I had the opportunity to contribute as Chairwoman of Green Mongolia Hub and as a participant in Drynet’s CS4LDN mentorship programme. My greatest hope was to bring the realities of dryland communities closer to international decision-making and demonstrate that civil society can contribute technical expertise and practical solutions.
Before COP17, I helped coordinate Voice of the Desert, a Mongolia-led international initiative across Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. We documented water scarcity, land degradation, and changing livelihoods. Returning to Ulaanbaatar just four days before COP17 opened, I felt an enormous responsibility to bring these observations into the conference.
One of my proudest achievements was organising and moderating Green Mongolia Hub’s official Blue Zone side event and hosting a collaborative pavilion connecting international and local organisations. I also moderated Finance Day and Land Day discussions, engaging experts from Japan, Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and beyond. We explored advanced digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems, artificial intelligence, satellite monitoring, carbon finance, and transparency for Land Degradation Neutrality. I was honoured to receive invitations from several high-level national delegations, including China, to contribute to their side events.
What excited me most was that these connections did not end with discussions. Providers of digital AI platforms, MRV systems, and geospatial information services expressed interest in working with Green Mongolia Hub to develop real pilot projects in Mongolia—testing technologies and solutions that could be adapted to our landscapes and eventually scaled. China, our immediate neighbour, also provided important opportunities. Chinese delegations invited me to visit their restoration sites and explore partnerships based on decades of practical experience in combating desertification.
In fact, I have just completed a documentary field trip organised by People’s Daily China, exploring Mongolia–China cooperation in combating desertification. Visiting restoration sites in Inner Mongolia allowed me to witness how ecological restoration can connect with renewable energy, agriculture, green infrastructure, and local livelihoods. I hope the documentary will inspire wider participation and help turn these exchanges into joint restoration projects and programmes between China and Mongolia. These experiences reinforced my biggest realisation: we already have advanced technologies, scientific knowledge, and restoration solutions. What we urgently need is to connect them with financing, institutional capacity, and communities to achieve implementation at scale.
Drynet’s CS4LDN mentorship programme helped prepare me for these opportunities. Beyond technical training, our mentors strengthened my confidence, expanded my networks, and helped me understand how civil society can engage more effectively in international processes. I am deeply grateful to Drynet, our mentors, and fellow participants for supporting this journey.
COP17 also revealed challenges. Smaller CSOs face enormous financial and organisational demands and converting international connections into funded projects remains difficult. The conference has ended, but the real work has just begun. My greatest takeaway is that civil society must move beyond simply sharing stories of land degradation. We need to be trusted, equipped, and supported to help design, finance, implement, and sustain real solutions.
