We cannot live without healthy soil and land. It is on these resources that we produce most of our food and build our homes. We need them to provide clean water and precious plant nutrients, to conserve biological diversity and to cope with climate change. And they form the basis for the livelihoods of millions of people. But despite such known facts, these valuable resources are in a dire state. A third of all soils world-wide are already degraded, and each year, further huge expanses of fertile land go lost.

This document is intended to promote a disciplined approach to integrated closure planning and increase the uniformity of good practice across the sector. The concepts apply equally to both large and small mining companies.

Land degradation neutrality (LDN) has been defined by the Parties to the Convention as: A state whereby the amount and quality of land resources, necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems. The present report is an overview of the status of land degradation neutrality (LDN) in the region including a national overview for the 17 programme countries.

Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the “advanced economies” of the global North relies on a large net appropriation of resources and labour from the global South, extracted through price differentials in international trade. Past attempts to estimate the scale and value of this drain have faced a number of conceptual and empirical limitations, and have been unable to capture the upstream resources and labour embodied in traded goods.

From 24 to 26 November 2020, the three organisations comprising the Life After Coal campaign, Earthlife Africa (Johannesburg), the Centre for Environmental Rights and ground Work, met virtually to develop a shared Open Agenda on the Just Transition. We used the Open Agenda for a Just Transition - developed at the National Coal Exchange in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, in July 2019 - as a starting point.

The National Urban Assessment for Armenia provides a snapshot of the country’s urban sector and offers insights to achieving prosperous and sustainable cities. Armenia is highly urbanized, with the population concentrated in Yerevan and its surrounding areas given the capital’s geopolitical, economic, and cultural legacy. Opportunities exist to develop well-planned infrastructure along with balanced resource distribution among Yerevan and other cities, while leveraging Armenia’s cultural and environmental assets.

Armenia is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus. After gaining independence from the former Soviet Union, a very difficult socio- economic situation developed in Armenia, with a current high level of poverty. Land privatization has led to excessive land fragmentation and a small average farm size. Most of the country (87 percent) is mountainous with a vertical zonation of diverse landscapes. Armenia is hotspot of biodiversity in the region, facing human and climate induced land degradation. Water erosion affects most forest and croplands across the country.

This publication synthesizes climate characteristics and projections, vulnerability to natural hazards, sectoral climate change impacts, and adaptation priorities in Armenia. It outlines rapid onset and long-term changes in key climate parameters, as well as the impact of these changes on communities, livelihoods, and economies—many of which are already underway. The publication is part of a series of climate risk country profiles published jointly by ADB and the World Bank Group.