Global Soil Week 2017

The Fourth Global Soil Week (GSW) will convene from 22-24 May 2017 in Berlin, Germany, to address the theme of “Catalyzing SDG Implementation through a Soil and Land Review.”

One of the main objectives of the meeting is to provide input for the forthcoming UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in July 2017. Using a learning lab format, diverse stakeholders will employ an integrative “soil and land lens” to review SDG 1,2,3,5,9,14 and 17, the seven SDGs under focus by the HLPF this year.

Further discussions at GSW 2017 will take place in parallel thematic workshops on: “Soil Rehabilitation for Zero Hunger: Upscaling people’s technologies by sharing lessons and developing strategies”; “Right to [defend] Land: Strengthening accountability at the local level through thematic reviews”; and “Competing Pressures on Soil and Land: Securing our natural resource base for food security.”

Convened for the first time in 2012, the GSW is a collective process and a knowledge platform for sustainable soil management and responsible land governance worldwide. It brings together high-level decision-makers, scientists, civil society representatives and artists from a wide range of professional and cultural backgrounds. The GSW is convened by the by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and its partners, including the Global Soil Partnership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Economic Development (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt – UBA), UN Environment, and the UN Convention to Combat Deseartification (UNCCD).