27 August 2026, Ulaanbaatar | At UNCCD COP17 Mongolia, soil health was at the center of the agenda. It was present across negotiations, ministerial dialogues, side events, and the Action Agenda. The numbers give a sense of its scale: the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) network held 72 events alongside 90+ partners across the two weeks. 

The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), Landscape Alliance (CIFOR-ICRAF), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program, WWF, and partners, convened senior leaders and partners at UNCCD COP17 Mongolia for a high-level dinner focused on a simple but critical message: healthy soils are fundamental to resilient food systems, healthy ecosystems and a more climate-resilient future.

The COP17 session, “Regenerative Agriculture for Land Restoration and Healthy Diets: Closing the Finance Gap,” co-organised by CA4SH and partners, brought together progress on two complementary initiatives under the COP30 Action Agenda — the Plan to Accelerate Regenerative Agriculture for Healthy Soil and Healthy Diets and RAIZ (Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation) — while exploring what is needed to build a stronger global business case for regenerative agriculture.

On Tuesday, 18 August, the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) joined Drynet, AIDER, and Fundación CAUCE on a side event dubbed“Healthy Soils 4 Food: Connecting Agricultural Land Restoration, Food Systems and Nutrition.”

The session brought together diverse voices — soil scientists, policy experts, nutrition advocates, and youth leaders — to explore the vital link between land restoration, soil health, nutrition, and healthy diets.

Five years ago, the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) was launched at the UN Food Systems Summit to advocate for healthy soil as central to food system transformation.

At that time, healthy soil was not formally recognized as a climate solution, despite it being the largest terrestrial carbon sink and having a central role in upholding food and nutrition security, combating land degradation and drought, hosting biodiverse ecosystems, and filtering and storing water, among a myriad of other co-benefits. 

But momentum was growing.

Read the full op-ed by CA4SH co-Lead Dr Leigh Winowiecki

Healthy soil is essential for ecosystem restoration, biodiversity conservation, food security and nutrition, and climate mitigation and adaptation. At the COP30 plenary session “From Policy to the Ground: Scaling Action for Healthy Soil”, governments, development agencies, farmer organizations, and youth networks came together to reflect on how policies can drive real change for soil health, and it must be brought into the center of climate negotiations.

From 10–21 November 2025, delegates from UN Member States, civil society organizations, the research community, Indigenous peoples, youth, non-profit organizations, the private sector, and more, came together in Belém, Brazil to drive the future of the global climate agenda. 

Representation from diverse groups is paramount to ensuring the voices of all are heard, and central to the approach from the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH). At this year’s COP, we centred youth voices, presented experiential learning from farmer-centred food security initiatives, called for increased attention to soil health as a climate solution from policy and financial stakeholders, and stressed the need for approaches to be rooted in Indigenous knowledge and value systems. The CA4SH Secretariat participated in 20 unique sessions across the Action on Food Hub, Brazil Pavilion, Food & Agriculture Pavilion, Spanish Pavilion, and the Nordic Pavilion, and we supported our network of partners and collaborators by promoting their engagements through our annual #COPSoil landing page.

Read on for an overview of our engagements at COP, positioning soil health as a key climate solution with co-benefits for global food security, biodiversity, sustainable landscapes, and rural livelihoods.

A side event showcased rising global momentum for land restoration, with the Riyadh Action Agenda surpassing one hundred initiatives and the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes mobilising more than USD nine billion in private investment.

By Dr Anneke Trux, Co-Lead of Global Programmes “Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security” (ProSoil) and “Soil Matters – Innovations for Soil Health and Agroecology”

Soils are finally stepping into the spotlight of global climate action! They do so for good reasons. Long underestimated, they are now recognised as a pillar for climate mitigation. Yet, let’s be clear: while soils are an emerging hero, they are not a silver bullet. They must complement, not replace, mitigation efforts in energy, transport, industry and other.

The COP30 Action Agenda is the UNFCCC COP30 Presidency’s flagship initiative to mobilize voluntary climate action from multistakeholder organizations to tackle the climate crisis in line with the Paris Agreement. The Action Agenda engages actors outside of government, those who are not included in the formal negotiations, but who are essential for actioning the climate agreements on the ground.

The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) is an initiative of Action Group 8, Land Restoration and Sustainable Agriculture, that addresses one of the six thematic axes laid out by the COP30 Presidency, namely, Axis 3. Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems. Learn more about the structure and calls of the Action Agenda here and about the composition of the Action Groups here

Included in the Action Agenda is a call for active solutions to achieve the goals of the Convention. CA4SH and several partners have submitted a solution which aims to bring soil health to the forefront of agricultural transformation. In advance of the COP30, we are excited to share an outline of the solution below.

The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) is rooted in the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Since our official launch in 2021, CA4SH has amassed a membership of over 200 multistakeholder organizations and collaborated with countless partners.

This year, the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNCCD was focused on a people-centred approach to accelerating action on land and drought resilience, themed Our Land. Our Future.

Since healthy soil is essential to land and drought resilience, and provides co-benefits that link with all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals, the CA4SH network came together for a record engagement at COP16 to advocate for scaling global soil health.

Countless CA4SH partners attended the UNFCCC COP29 this month, so we reached out to ask how it went!

Despite this being an incredibly busy time of year, we received several responses from partners who highlighted the highs, the lows, and what still needs to be done to embed soil health more deeply in agenda set forth at the Rio Conventions.

Here are their reflections, in their own words.

11-22 NOVEMBER 2024: The UN Climate Convention COP29 was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, themed In Solidarity for a Green World. The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) is a motivated, multi-stakeholder coalition working to strengthen, facilitate and accelerate the adoption and scaling of soil health restoration practices. Soil health drives productivity and economic growth, rural livelihoods, biodiversity protection, and mitigation and adaptation to the climate crisis.

At COP29, CA4SH convened members, partners, and other stakeholders to underscore the critical importance of including soil in the climate proceedings. CA4SH held and participated in several sessions that teased apart the intricacies of scaling global soil health on the ground through finance, policy, support for farmers and land managers, and more. Keeping soil health on the climate agenda is an overarching objective of CA4SH, and at COP29, the power of multistakeholder voices was heard. Read on for an overview of our engagement!

Watch this Food Systems Call to Action endorser network webinar to hear from expert speakers on insights and expectations of the 3 Rio Convention Summits in 2024 – CBD COP16, COP29, and CCD COP16 – and discuss a set of high-level food systems messages and asks, building on the Food Systems Call to Action.

The Food Systems Call to Action raises the urgent need to take action on food systems to deliver for people, nature, and climate. Launched at COP28 by the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions and endorsed by hundreds of food systems actors, it will remain open until COP30. The Call to Action outlines a shared vision and priority set of actions from a broad and diverse multi-stakeholder community.