ECO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Hüseyin Avni Bıçaklı participated in the nineteenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF19), held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from May 6 to 10, 2024.
During this meeting, Ambassador Bıçaklı presented a statement, which was also uploaded on the link of the relevant UN Journal. In his statement, ECO Deputy Secretary-General stipulated that environmental degradation, including deforestation as a source of global concern, requires reinforced multilateralism and collaborative actions. In such a context, he underscored the potential role of intergovernmental regional and sub-regional organizations as ECO in facilitating inclusive and sustainable multilateral actions cost-effectively toward achieving globally agreed goals on the environment including the implementation of the UN Strategic Plan for Forest.
On the sideline of this event, the ECO Deputy Secretary-General held bilateral interactions and exchanges including with the delegations of ECO Member States and other international partners, and took part in a couple of side events.
It is noteworthy that at the end of this meeting, Türkiye and Iran as the two ECO Member States were elected respectively as the next Chair and the Vice-Chair of the United Nations Forum on Forests.
The session further adopted the Declaration of the High-Level Segment and the Omnibus Resolution.
ECO has been collaborating with UNFF since 2014 and assumed observer status with this entity.
