On December 14-16, 2021 The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change of the Republic of Turkey hosted the Workshop on Development of Project to Combat Desertification in the ECO region ,“ ECO LandCare in collaboration with ECO Secretariat. Three days event brought up cooperative platform to review latest situation on land degradation with particular emphasis to desertification, sand storms and dust haze in ECO Member States. The participants delivered country presentations with current problems in land use and solutions that have been particularly exploited to tackle with environmental and anthropogenic challenges. The regional offices of UN Convention to Combat Desertification and Food and Agricultural Organization also took part in discussions along with latest activities in the region.
Member States such as Turkey, Iran and Pakistan introduced their advanced experiences in combating causes of land degradation for sharing as best practices in the region. Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan briefed on national developments and international cooperation toward combating land degradation, sand storm and dust hazes as well. The Republic of Turkey indicated particularly its financial and technical assistance schemes in rendering cooperation on land degradation issues for the countries of region. To facilitate and promote benefitting from ECO’s financial and technical capacity, the participants were updated on institutional decision-making and project financing procedures.
The Meeting concluded mandating ECO-IEST to follow up efficient implementation mechanism of ECO Landcare project and the Member States will explore opportunities to enhance cooperation in exchange of best practices amongst them to address challenges of land degradation.
