The document summarizes activities of the NENA Soil Partnership. It discusses the establishment of the International Network on Salt-Affected Soils in response to a request from the partnership. It outlines activities implemented under each of the partnership's pillars, including Morocco offering to be a pilot country for sustainable fertilizer use, events held for World Soil Day, development of policy briefs and a soil database, contributions to global soil assessments, training on soil carbon and salinity maps, and the establishment of a soil laboratory network for the region.

1. NENA Soil Partnership

2. International Network on Salt-
Affected Soils (INSAS)
• Established in response to the request made by the NENA Soil
Partnership at the 7th GSP Plenary Assembly
• Launch meeting of INSAS at the ICBA’s Global Forum on Innovations for
Marginal Environment in November 2019

3. Activities implemented under Pillar 1
Morocco offered to be a pilot
country to implement the
International Code of Conduct
for the Sustainable Use and
Management of Fertilizers in
2020. This experience will be
shared with other NENA and
African countries

4. Activities implemented under Pillar 2
Celebration of the World Soil Day 2019
27 registered event in 9 countries

5. Activities implemented under Pillar 2
Policy briefs on the multi-faced role of soils in the region, which are
available in English, French and Arabic on the NENA Soil Partnership
webpage.
Launched at the NENA Land and Water
Days 2019 (April 2019)
It lead to the formulation and approval of
a regional Technical Cooperation
Programme (TCP) project

6. Activities implemented under Pillar 2
Policy briefs on the multi-faced role of soils in the region, which are
available in English, French and Arabic on the NENA Soil Partnership
webpage.
Launched at the ICBA's Global Forum on
Innovations for Marginal Environment
Countries (November 2019)

7. Activities implemented under Pillar 2
Policy briefs on the multi-faced role of soils in the region, which are
available in English, French and Arabic on the NENA Soil Partnership
webpage.
Launched at the Conference on improving
water productivity in the NENA region
(December 2019).

8. Activities implemented under Pillar 2
Countries also contributed to the development of SoilLEX by replying to
the questionnaire sent out by the GSP Secretariat. SoilLEX will
complement information on soil legislation in the FAOLEX Database.

9. Activities implemented under Pillar 3
• Focal points from countries within the region have contributed to the
Global Assessment on Soil Biodiversity, by presenting scientific
communications to the Biodiversity symposium organized by the GSP
Secretariat.
• NENA countries selected the experts to join the editorial board for the
Global Assessment of Soil Pollution report.
• Near East countries also appointed experts to contribute to the Soil
Atlas of Asia by harmonizing their national soil classification systems
and by sending maps and text contributions to the editorial board

10. Activities implemented under Pillar 4
Countries continued to improve their national soil organic carbon maps and
training was organized on the preparation of national soil salinity maps.

11. Activities implemented under Pillar 5
The three of the most active laboratories from the region participated in the 2019
GLOSOLAN proficiency test while all others should do it during 2020.
The launch meeting of the NENA Soil Laboratory Network (NENALAB) will take place
on the Zoom platform from 9 to 11 June 2020.