ECO Secretary General H. E. Dr. Soleimanpour received the delegate headed by United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Partnerships with the Middle East and Central Asia, H. E. Rashid Khalikov at ECO Secretariat on Monday 19 November 2018 to consult on increasing humanitarian cooperation between ECO and UN-OCHA.
H. E. Dr. Soleimanpour expressed his pleasure over receiving the Assistant Secretary General of UN in Humanitarian Affairs and followed by a brief introduction about the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), he outlined that the ECO Vision 2025, recently adopted by Member States has prioritized the fields of cooperation between member states.
The Secretary General added that ECO based on its rule of procedures and prioritized program and plans, as envisaged in Vision 2025, is eager to cooperate with UN- OCHA and any relevant UN agencies as well as developing partners to meet the global targets and goals in DRR. In this regards ECO is inviting UN-OCHA to cooperate the proper implementation of recently drafted ECO Regional Framework on DRR. ECO Secretary General pointed out that the region is very prone to natural disasters whereas any preparedness measure as well as Capacity Building projects is exigency in our region.
During the meeting Mr. Khalikov highlighted the high vulnerability of ECO Member States against most aspects of natural disasters and called on for more cooperation between ECO Secretariat and UN-OCHA in this field. He hailed the fundamental measures by ECO Secretariat for preparing a regional framework on Disaster Risk Reduction and announced that the OCHA is keen to work with ECO to enhance the implementation of its framework and to help ECO Secretariat to build the responding capacities for any kind of possible disasters in each member states.
Dr. Soleimanpour mentioned that the internal process of ECO for signing international agreements will be followed by the Secretariat, in response to UN-OCHA's MoU proposal. The Meeting ended with both parties' wishes for enhancing cooperation between ECO and OCHA to support the ECO region against natural and man-made disasters.
