Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa A/RES/74/220 13. Invites the parties to the Convention to provide the new Executive Secretary of the Convention with full support in the fulfilment of his mandate and in promoting the implementation of the Convention; 14. Stresses the urgent need to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather events, and in this regard urges Member States to continue to engage in adaptation planning processes and to enhance cooperation in disaster risk reduction; 15. Invites the United Nations Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, which was formed at the twenty-fourth meeting of the senior officials of the Environment Management Group in September 2018, and other relevant United Nations entities to continue their collaboration to assist affec ted country parties in developing and implementing national and regional policies on sand and dust storms; 16. Recognizes that gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls remains a crucial contribution to the effective implementation of the Con vention, including its 2018–2030 Strategic Framework, and to the achievement of the Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, stresses the importance of parties to the Convention and partners pursuing the equal participation of women and men in planning, decision-making and implementation at all levels and further promoting gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in desertification, land degradation and drought-related policies and activities, and stresses the importance of effective implementation of the four priority thematic areas of the Gender Action Plan adopted by the parties to the Convention; 17. Reiterates the invitation to the secretariat and the Global Mechanism of the Convention to continue to collaborate and build partnerships with the secretariats of the other Rio conventions, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), other United Nations entities, international organizations and other relevant organizations to explore further ways of strengthening awareness-raising, improving the Gender Action Plan and developing further tools and guidelines for the use of parties in the thematic areas of the Gender Action Plan and the gender-responsive implementation of the Convention; 18. Recalls the invitation to parties to the Convention to legally recognize rights to equal use and ownership of land for women and the enhancement of women ’s equal access to land and land tenure security, as well as the promotion of gender sensitive measures to combat desertification, land degradation and drought and achieve land degradation neutrality, taking into account the national context; 19. Encourages parties to the Convention to follow the principles of implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security 11 in the implementation of activities to combat desertification, land degradation and drought; 20. Encourages the public and private sectors to continue to invest in developing, adapting and scaling up the application of technologies, enabling policies, methods and tools to combat desertification, land degradation and drought in different regions, and to boost knowledge exchange, including of t raditional knowledge with the consent of the knowledge holders, capacity -building and sharing of technologies on mutually agreed terms; __________________ 11 19-22489 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, document CL 144/9 (C 2013/20), appendix D. 5/7