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Countries gather at UN meeting on treaty against desertification

Countries gather at UN meeting on treaty against desertification

Against a backdrop of major environmental emergencies worldwide, delegates from nearly 200 countries meeting in Nairobi today kicked off a two-week United Nations conference aimed at assessing progress made in addressing drought and desertification.

The 191 countries are all party to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which is the only legally binding instrument at the disposal of the international community designed to tackle that issue.

“The fight against desertification is fundamentally a fight against poverty,” said Hama Arba Diallo, the treaty’s Executive Secretary. Desertification is considered potentially the most threatening ecosystem change directly impacting the poor.

This year’s Conference seeks to mark a further milestone on the road to achieving sustainable development and reducing rural poverty, organizers said. It takes place against the backdrop of numerous humanitarian emergencies, such as drought in Niger, which has left 2.5 million people facing acute food shortages, and in southern Europe, where the problem has triggered devastating forest fires with staggering economic costs.