UN launched a Fund to assist the population of the Aral sea region
The high-level event to launch the Multi-Partner Human Security Trust Fund for the Aral Sea Region (MPHSTF), designed to significantly improve the lives of people affected by the worst environmental disaster, was held at the UN headquarters in New York this week.
Established under the auspices of the UN on the initiative of Uzbekistan, the Fund will focus on ensuring environmental, economic, food, social and health security of the population of the Aral sea region, thereby contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals.
We need to extend the collaboration and resources to make the vision of the Multi-Partner Human Security Trust Fund a reality and to advance sustainable development in the region, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the ceremony, calling donors to provide financial support.
As Guterres stressed, through two integrated programmes supported by the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security, communities have experienced an upsurge in jobs, 45 per cent of which have gone to women, empowering them with better access to health care, and a general increase in their sense of well-being.
Collaborative and human security-centred interventions have already transformed lives in the region, restoring optimism, opportunity and dignity, he added.
The drying of the Aral sea is considered one of the most serious environmental collapses in the world, which caused a cascade of environmental, socio-economic and humanitarian challenges.
Over the past half century, the volume of the Aral sea has decreased by more than 14 times. The level of salinity has increased 25 times, and is now significantly higher than the world ocean. Salinity levels have increased by 25 times, and now significantly exceed those of the world’s oceans. Today, in place of once flourishing fishing waters, a sandy salt desert of more than 5.5 million hectares is a breeding ground for dust and salt storms, carrying more than 75 million tons of dust and poisonous minerals into the atmosphere every year across thousands of kilometers. The Aral dust is found on the coast of Antarctica, in glaciers of Greenland, forests of Norway.
The fact that the preservation of the Aral sea can not be considered as an internal, regional problem and its successful solution requires the assistance of the international community, a new focused, integrated international approach, active and systematic participation in this work of the UN, was repeatedly stated by the leader of Turkmenistan – during the August IFAS summit in Avaza and at the General Assembly in September.
Ashgabat made a proposal to develop a Special UN program for the Aral sea, which will outline specific plans to stabilize and improve the situation in the Aral sea basin and the implementation of the SDGs. The concept of the program is ready.
In addition, as a chairing country in IFAS, Turkmenistan initiated the adoption by the General Assembly of the Resolution On cooperation between the United Nations and the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea.
