DUSHANBE, March 1, 2010, Asia-Plus — The Kazakh capital Astana will host the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Ministerial Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development in September this year.
According to Kazakh news agency, Kazakhstan Today, Mr. Shaoyi Li, director of the Environment and Development Division, ESCAP, noted that several issues with focus on green growth were on the conference’s agenda. “We will discuss the principles of ecological research, use of natural resources, working out of the new paradigm based on the principles of low emissions of hotbed gases, and town-planning questions,” Mr. Shaoyi Li was cited as saying. “We hope that we will accept the ministerial declaration, which will be signed not only by Ecology Ministers, but also Economy Ministers in Astana,” he noted.
The conference participants intend to develop the 5-year-old plan of realization of specific measures for ecological safety in the region until 2015.
The conference that is expected to begin on September 27 will last for 6 days, Kazakhstan Today reported.
Established in 1947, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), with headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, is the regional development arm of the United Nations for the Asia-Pacific region. With a membership of 62 Governments, 58 of which are in the region, and a geographical scope that stretches from Turkey in the west to the Pacific island nation of Kiribati in the east, and from the Russian Federation in the north to New Zealand in the south, ESCAP is the most comprehensive of the United Nations five regional commissions. It is also the largest United Nations body serving the Asia-Pacific region with over 600 staff.
