Status of Desertification and Implementation of the United Nations Plan of Action to Combat Desertification - Report of the Executive Director

Desertification is land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas (drylands) resulting mainly from adverse human impact. By General Assembly's Resolution 44/172 of December 1989, the Governing Council and the Executive Director of UNEP were invited to "contribute substantially to the discussion on desertification at the conference, inter alia, by undertaking a general evaluation, sufficiently in advance, of progress achieved in implementing the Plan of Action to Combat Desertification". The present report was prepared in response to this invitation as well as to other provisions of the same resolution.