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..Press
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UNESCAP News Services
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Date 28
March 2005
Press Release No: G/04/2005
REGION HOLDS KEY TO POVERTY ERADICATION
Seoul Ministerial Conference to set Green
Growth agenda
Seoul (United Nations Information Services) --
The Ministerial Segment of the Fifth Ministerial Conference
on Environment and Development opened today in Seoul with a
challenge: how to enhance development without hurting the environment.
“Your region is especially vulnerable to
natural disaster. I saw personally the terrible devastation
caused by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean late last year. Compounded
with persistent poverty and rapid population growth, this disaster
places additional pressure on resources and ecosystems,”
said Secretary General Kofi Annan in a statement read out to
the Conference.
While noting that the region will be able to make
dramatic progress in the years to come, Republic of Korea President
Roh Moo-hyun told delegates, “The region may be in the
world’s limelight, but at the same time there are many
tasks that have to be solved in a cooperative effort. The first
and foremost is to deal with poverty.”
To resolve this problem, President Roh said it was urgent to
increase income through sustainable economic growth. “The
Korean people have overcome poverty over the past 40 years and
we know this urgency first hand.”
The meeting, with the theme “Achieving Environmentally
Sustainable Growth,” is being organized by UNESCAP. Held
once in five years, it is being hosted by the Government of
the Republic of Korea, drawing some 300 participants, from 52
countries of the ESCAP region. Some 32 delegates are at Ministerial
level representing environment, planning and finance ministries.
UNESCAP’s Executive Secretary Mr. Kim Hak-Su
warned participants that “signs of stress are already
apparent on the region’s natural resources. Now the challenge
is for us to continue the economic growth necessary to reduce
poverty while ensuring environmental sustainability.”
The two-day Ministerial Segment will consider
concrete plans to tackle environmental degradation with a Green
Growth policy framework that will be part of the Seoul Initiative
for Environmentally Sustainable Growth or Green Growth and a
regional implementation plan for Sustainable Development in
Asia and the Pacific (2006-2010).
For further information, please contact:
Mr. David Lazarus, Chief, UN Information Services, Bangkok
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861-66; Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052
Tel. in Republic of Korea: +82-2-3188225
Mobile: 82-010 3982-3529
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org
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