The United Nations will be observing its annual World Day to Combat Desertification on Sunday, known as 'World Desertification Day'. The focus this year is on the theme ''desertification and climate change—one global challenge'' in order to raise awareness about the dangers of desertification and the importance of prevention. Experts have warned that nearly a fifth of the world's population is directly or indirectly threatened by desertification. Countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile are particularly at risk. In Bangladesh, some non-governmental organizations are planning to observe the day, as government initiatives to address the issue have been lacking. Abu Sumon, who serves as the director of the Wetland and Coastal Biodiversity Project within the Department of Environment, has highlighted the alarming impact of global warming this year. He has also identified desertification as a side-effect of global warming, noting the discovery of plants growing in harsh environments as evidence of desertification in the northern region of the country. Sumon has pointed out the Barindra land as having the hardest soil in the country and emphasized the decreasing underground water level as a recent phenomenon directly linked to the issue. The United Nations has issued a warning that global warming is contributing to the spread of dry, barren land, potentially displacing millions of people in the future. The UN's leading authority on global warming has highlighted the harsh impacts of rising temperatures on rainfall patterns, snowmelt runoff, and river flows in many countries already facing water scarcity. By 2080, an estimated 80 to 200 million more people could be at risk of hunger due to climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) reports that 70 percent of the world's agricultural drylands, totaling 5.2 billion hectares, are currently degraded and under threat from desertification. These vulnerable lands are increasingly susceptible to overgrazing, deforestation, and other forms of exploitation, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. The United Nations body stated that desertification is growing rapidly and, despite being aware of the severe environmental and social impacts for some time, this problem has not been given the appropriate amount of attention at national, regional, and international levels.