On 7 May 2018, the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and CIFE signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Bonn.

Both institutions "have the common aim of creating, developing and strenghtening capacities that will support a more efficacious implementation of the UNCCD and indeed the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals."

The purpose of the Memorandum is a long-term cooperation and collaboration in the following areas:
1) Cooperation and collaboration in research useful in the combat of desertification, land degradation and drought;
2) Cooperation and collaboration in education including the development and delivery of academic courses pertaining to economic governance for sustainable development; and sharing ideas on the continuous improvement of CIFE's education curriculum;
3) Supporting the career development of CIFE'S alumni through the granting of internships and other learning/training opportunities at the institutions of the UNCCD.

Signataries of the memorandum were Richard Byron-Cox, Action Programme Alignment and Capacity Building officer  at the UNCCD, and Matthias Waechter, Director General CIFE. Present to the signing were J. Daniel Gonzalez, Consultant at the UNCCD, and Arnaud Leconte, Programme Director of CIFE's Joint Master in Global Economic Governance and Public Affairs; as well as Aurore Vernhes and Philip Kendekka Sinyan, interns at the UNCCD.

The participants of CIFE'S new Joint Master in Global Economic Governance and Public Affairs which starts in October 2018 will be the first students to benefit from this agreement, as it will allow them to apply for one of the UNCCD's internships after their graduation.

From left to right: Arnaud Leconte, Richard Byron-Cox, Philip Kendekka Sinyan, Aurore Vernhes, Matthias Waechter. In the picture below, to the right: J. Daniel Gonzalez