The course will build the competencies needed to transform the way practitioners manage dryland forests, with a focus on increasing sustainability whilst retaining the benefits of other interventions. It targets programme and project managers, field practitioners, policy makers and anyone interested in sustainable development of drylands. The launch event will take place on Zoom on 29 March 2023, 10.00-11.30 CEST, and includes high-level speakers, experts and partners who will discuss some of the course’s topics in detail. There will be interpretation in English, French and Farsi.

On February 28th WOCAT organized a workshop with GIZ for the seven ProSoil countries and its national partners. The workshop introduced participants to the WOCAT-FAO Mapping Questionnaire (QM), showed them examples of the application of the QM around the globe and participants discussed its utilization in the ProSoil project landscapes. Furthermore, the concept of convergence of evidence was presented, participants familiarized with the use of Google Earth Engine (GEE) in the context of land degradation, SLM and LDN, and the GEE decision support apps for LDN showcased.

WOCAT and FAO set up a survey to gather information from different actors working in the field of SLM and land restoration about their expertise and interest in South-South knowledge exchange. A Portuguese version of the survey is open until 31 March 2023 and all partners form Lusophone countries are kindly invited to fill out the survey.

IFAD and WOCAT jointly prepared the publication "Supporting Extension Services to Scale Up Sustainable Land Management: The potential of WOCAT’s tools and methods". Based on 119 SLM practices in Cambodia, Laos and Uganda, this publication shows smallholders prioritized SLM solutions that directly benefited them: the participatory farmer-centred approach is a powerful means of uncovering those practices that improved well-being, whether in terms of food or income. 

Ecuador is preparing its national report for UNCCD's PRAIS 4 reporting, including the SDG indicator 15.3.1 on degraded land. WOCAT has supported the Ministry of Environment to improve its estimations with national data & expert knowledge. A workshop was held in January with experts from WOCAT, FAO, CONDESAN and more to improve mapping of land degradation neutrality sub-indicators. A cloud-based tool was also developed to explore land productivity dynamics.

The Vice Minister of Environment of Panama verifies progress of data on Report of Dry and Degraded Lands of Panama. Previously, a series of workshops organized by the Ministry of Environment of Panama, FAO and WOCAT has trained national experts in the use of Google Earth Engine and Trends.Earth to calculate the Land Degradation Neutrality indicators and gather information on the current state of dry and degraded lands in Panama.