Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I have the honour to make this contribution on behalf of Group of 77 and China to our discussion on ‘Drought and Desertification monitoring and assessment’. We thank the Panelists for their important presentations.

Monitoring and assessment of physical conditions of the areas affected by drought is of paramount importance in order to formulate strategies to implement objectives of UNCCD. It is a priority area for UNCCD as well as in the work programme of its Committee of Science and Technology (CST).

One of the key objectives of National Action Plans (NAPs) is to institutionalize procedures and systems of monitoring and assessment. It helps the decision makers to identify the status and impact of the desertification and land degradation processes and to choose appropriate actions to reverse the process of desertification and land degradation and to mitigate impact of drought.

Mr. Chairman,

The process of land degradation requires continued monitoring using scientific expertise and technology and timely intervention at national as well as international level. While reviewing the reports presented in this session, we have noted with concern that important process of monitoring and assessment has not achieved sufficient progress due to lack of financial resources for National Action Plans and access to the advanced satellite based technologies in the affected developing country parties despite their best intentions. This situation demands concerted efforts by all of us.

While we recognize the support from GEF, UNEP and FAO on the global land degradation assessment in dry land through Land Degradation Assessment in Dry lands (LADA) project, we would like to express that the financial resources are neither enough to cover a long term operation of global assessment system to provide comparable data of the land degradation process, nor are sufficient to build and develop the capacities of the affected developing country Parties in application of advanced techniques and obtaining the facilities and equipments.

We would like to invite GEF to give due consideration to the financial demand for establishing a global monitoring and assessment system covering affected countries.

Mr. Chairman,

The establishment of an effective monitoring and assessment system requires political will as well as means of implementation. We have demonstrated our will through our NAPs, but we are faced with the challenges of access to adequate technologies, particularly the advanced spatial techniques to carry out the work of monitoring and assessment. Therefore, we stress on the creation of an enabling policy environment at international level so that advanced technologies could be provided and transferred to affected country parties.

In this regard, we would encourage the CST to accelerate its efforts to establish links with scientific communities in order to make full use of the relevant initiatives of scientists and provide relevant technical support to the affected countries.

Mr. Chairman,

Ten years have passed since we agreed in the UNCCD to combat desertification including land degradation and, to mitigate the impact of drought. Today, we are concerned to note that sufficient progress has not been made on land degradation monitoring and assessment, which is basis for preparing effective strategies. It is our hope that discussions during this session and the Report of the CRIC-5 will send a strong message to COP-8 to find sustainable solutions and implementation of commitments.

I thank you Chair.