IN THE NINETEENTH SESSION, the ACSAD organization participates in the Arab Preparatory Meeting to review the international convention’s implementation to combat Desertification.
His Excellency, the Director-General of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Drylands (ACSAD), Dr. Nasr Edin Obaid, confirmed the importance of the joint Arab cooperation and coordination, the serious keenness to integrating the efforts to cope with the international society in reviewing the implementation of combating desertification convention and its strategy and initiatives; especially the initiative of land-degradation neutrality, knowing the work outcomes of the international governmental team involved in putting effective procedures to implement the addressing policies and methodologies of drought afflicting most Arab countries located in the arid and semi-arid regions on the Earth.
While he was heading the ACSAD delegation in the Arab preparatory meeting in the nineteenth session for the committee to review the implementation of the International Convention to Combat Desertification which was held on 8/3/2021 via video technology, he clarified that ACSAD was the Arab Organization mandated by the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States to follow up the implementation of the convention in the Arab region. He also confirmed that the convention formed an international container to unify and coordinate the regional and global efforts to deal with Desertification and land degradation, to implement the fifteenth target of sustainable development goals on combating Desertification and restoring the degraded land.
He pointed out that the meeting formed an occasion for discussion, dialogue, knowledge and experiences exchange, and listening to interventions and views on the items the meeting is dealing with, working on implementing it and dispelling its difficulties, transferring the common Arab point of view to International Fora participating in the nineteenth session on the review of the implementation of the convention which would be held on 15-19 of March via videoconference Under the supervision of the Executive Secretariat of the International Convention to Combat Desertification at its headquarter in Bone, Germany; with participating of representatives of the parties states from all around the world; to affirm the unified Arab presence in these forums as national references and Arab organizations, including ACSAD.
Dr. Obaid said that ACSAD was considered a comprehensive, scientific, Arab organization; its activities were distributed among all Arab countries from the ocean to the gulf, working on developing and promoting the natural resources, rationalizing its investment, conservating on the environmental systems, and guiding its management, and attention to human resources, local residents and improving their livelihood, particularly in the dry and semi-dry regions in the Arab world.
He explained that ACSAD implemented many projects, studies, research, and capacity-building and accumulated the expertise, knowledge, and technology it had transferred and still transferred to the Arab countries. It developed its working style and kept up with the technical and scientific developments. He also pointed out that one of the most important features of the current phase was represented by building cooperation bridges with the national institutions concerned with the Arab countries and the international, Arab, and regional organization working in western Asia and northern Africa; enhancing the forward efforts to developing the scientific agricultural research, and the transfer and settlement of modern agricultural technologies in order to increase agricultural production, establish a strong network of working relationships with scientific and technical institutions and coordinate effectively with them with a view to the full implementation of comprehensive agricultural, social and economic development tasks.
He expressed ACSAD keenness to integrate the joint efforts in supplying the Arab countries and keep up with the United Nation convention to combating Desertification in its strategies and activities, mostly that ACSAD was the Arab Organization mandated by the General Secretariat of League of the Arab States to follow up the implementation of the convention in the Arab region” as it mentioned previously.”
His Excellency, the Director-General, concluded his speech by saying that in fulfillment of that mandate, ACSAD paid particular concern to the desertification issues in the Arab region through research, studies, and implementation of the applied projects in addition to holding the training courses and specialized workshops. It depended on an integrated approach to combat desertification dealing with all physical, biological, and socio-economic aspects, enhancing the cooperation among institutions involved in protecting the environment and conserving land & water resources. It adopted a program studying the desertification situations and evaluating them in the Arab countries. It implemented and still implements pilot projects on monitoring and combating desertification, training and technology transferring, following up the international activities in this field, especially what is endorsed by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
