UNCCD African Participants Woo South Korea to Expand Exchange of Desertification Control Projects and Forestation

South Korea''s successful forest project cases are becoming the rage in Africa as another form of the "Korean Wave."
The South Korean delegation headed by Mr. Lee Soo-hwa, deputy chief of the Korea Forest Service has been participating in the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD being held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 17 to 28 October 2005. The delegation has been flooded by calls especially from African participant countries eager for project cooperation with the country, said the Korea Forest Service.
On 25 October, by the request of Nigeria''s Environment Minister Iyorchia Ayu, Lee Soo-hwa, head of South Korea''s delegation and the Nigeria''s Environment Minister had bilateral talks in which Mr. Ayu showed his special interests in South Korea''s projects to combat desertification in the Northeast Asian region and training of forest professionals, calling for expansion of exchanges between the two countries in the field of forest even at an NGO level.
Moreover, Mr. Hama Arba Diallo, executive secretary of the UNCCD who comes from Burkinapaso, Africa, requested South Korea to provide an increased assistance in its forest technologies, experts, and investment, among others, to Africa in a meeting with the head of Korean delegation on the sidelines of the COP-7.
Meanwhile, the head of South Korean delegation Mr. Lee Soo-hwa on the 25th of October during his speech at the Conference expressed the country''s intent to host the next COP-8, scheduled for October, 2007, manifesting that the country will second forest professionals to the UNCCD Secretariat in a bid to expand the country''s successful projects to combat desertification in Northeast Asia to an international level.

Translated by International Cooperation Division
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