An authoritative and comprehensive newsletter covering meetings of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification – as well as all other meetings of UN environment and development-related conventions. ENB writers have high-level access to all meetings and to UN officials, which makes ENB a must-read by experts in the field. It is the best way to follow a meeting without attending it in person. The site also contains links to newsletters covering the latest developments in water, climate change, forests and multilateral environmental agreements.

Established in 1977, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is one of 15 centers supported by CGIAR. ICARDA's mission is to improve the welfare of poor people through research and training in dry areas of the developing world, by increasing the production, productivity and nutritional quality of food, while preserving and enhancing the natural resource base.  ICARDA's research provides global benefits of poverty alleviation through productivity improvements integrated with sustainable natural-resource management practices. ICARDA meets this challenge through research, training, and dissemination of information in partnership with the national, regional and international agricultural research and development systems.

ICARDA serves the entire developing world for the improvement of lentil, barley and faba bean; all dry-area developing countries for the improvement of on-farm water-use efficiency, rangeland and small-ruminant production; and the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region for the improvement of bread and durum wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes, and farming systems.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, apolitical, international organisation devoted to science-based agricultural development. It is one of the 16 Future Harvest centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Its research focuses on the farming systems of the semi-arid tropical areas of the developing world, where erratic rainfall, low soil fertility, and extreme poverty are formidable constraints to agricultural development.

2006 is the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, as designated by the 58th session of the UN General Assembly. World Environment Day on 5 June 2006 and will focus exclusively on this topic. This is the International Year's official website. It contains a brief introduction to deserts and desertification, but it is mainly a source of information on all upcoming events around the world. These include conferences, exhibitions, and new books.

The SSO is a United Nations clearing-house initiative that encourages developing countries to share information on desertification. The organisation works within the framework of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Projects include developing indicators for environmental monitoring and promoting regional networks of scientists.

The UN convention's 179 member countries have agreed to make combating desertification a national priority for ten years. A conference of member countries (known as parties) takes place every two years to make decisions. The convention's secretariat is in Bonn. The convention's website contains all documents, meeting dates, press releases and other information related to the UN desertification convention. A science section focuses on technical issues linked to the convention process, and in particular the work of the convention's dedicated Committee on Science and Technology. The site also has a searchable database of experts. The site is aimed at those involved in the convention process – it is not meant for the non-expert user.

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, this centre helps countries in dry regions with their poverty alleviation planning, research, analysis and capacity-building efforts. The centre was founded in 1973 in response to recurring droughts in the Sahel. It was known then as the UN Sudano-Sahelian Office and was based in Burkina Faso carrying out relief and development work.