Excellencies, distinguished delegates, friends and partners, 

Thank you all for joining us.

I am very happy to welcome you to our event today.

At the heart of sustainable landscape restoration are people.

People are the custodians and protectors of the land. They farm it, depend on it for their livelihoods and are often the first to see when ecosystems are under stress.

But, there is an important gap in this picture, and the scale of exclusion is very telling. FAO data across 78 countries shows that in nearly 90% of countries, less than half of women have secure rights to agricultural land, while men are often at least twice as likely to own land. Only 15% of countries surveyed provide high or very high legal protection for women’s land rights. In many contexts, land systems remain gender-blind or actively work against women’s ability to own, inherit, control and make decisions about land.

We are here today to learn and exchange ideas on practical, innovative and inclusive approaches to sustainable landscape restoration, approaches that are delivering benefits for gender equality, women’s empowerment, land tenure security and ecosystem health.

Because delivering on land degradation neutrality is not only an environmental concern, it is also about resilience, livelihoods, security and rights. From our work across more than 170 countries, UNDP sees clearly that sustainable landscape management, secure land tenure, inclusion and gender equality are deeply interconnected. They cannot be addressed in isolation.

And if we want restoration to last and to reach scale, we also need to look at who is investing, who has access to those resources, and who gets to shape investment decisions. Gender-responsive financing is therefore not an add-on. Advancing women-led solutions and ensuring that women and local communities can access and influence resources is fundamental to achieve lasting results.

Today, we will hear from different country experiences, including Small Island Developing States, conflict-affected and countries with pastoralist traditions.

Across all these experiences, a common message emerges: investing in women-led landscape restoration is not simply an investment in women; it is an investment in the restoration itself. Women are not only beneficiaries of ecosystem restoration efforts. They are leaders, innovators and partners in delivering lasting solutions for people and nature.

I would like to thank our co-organizers, the UNCCD and the International Land Coalition, for your strong collaboration and partnership.

Thank you also to the partners joining us today – UN Women, the National Committee on Gender Equality of Mongolia, UN agencies, government partners and civil society partners.

Let us continue working closely together, drawing on each other’s strengths and experiences.

Restoration will be sustainable when it restores more than land, when it restores rights, agency and opportunity for the people who call that land home.

Thank you, I look forward to our discussion today.