United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Desertification, a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, adopted the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on June 17, 1994. It came into force on December 26, 1996.The UNCCD is one of the three conventions discussed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, or the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, in June 1992. It works closely with the other two Rio Conventions: the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNCCD has 114 signatories and 197 Parties to the Convention. (In UN documents, a ‘Party’ to a treaty is a country that has ratified or acceded to that particular treaty, and is therefore legally bound by the provisions in the instrument).India signed the UNCCD in October 1994 and ratified it in December 1996. (Signatories are qualified to ratify, accept or approve a treaty. Ratification is an 'international act' whereby a State indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty.) The country formulated its first National Action Programme to Combat Desertification, as required by the Convention, in the year 2001. The Programme presents an overview of India’s natural resources, discusses desertification and its impacts, and outlines its various measures to combat the issue.The Convention is divided into six parts which include 40 articles, along with five region-specific annexes...