UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly president Friday urged national assemblies of member states to ensure governments stay focused on their commitments to implement the global poverty reduction goals that the world has set out to attain in the next five years. “If we want to achieve the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) by 2015, national parliaments will have to take international development goals into account and into their daily work,” President Joseph Deiss told reporters in New York on the sidelines of two-day joint parliamentary hearings organized by the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The MDGs include halving the number of people living in extreme poverty across the world, as well as slashing hunger, maternal and infant mortality, and lack of access to health care and education, all by the target date of 2015. Parliaments have to ensure that national MDG programs are allocated the resources required to implement them, Deiss said. He also stressed the role of parliaments in providing support for the work of the UN, adding that they are essential in ensuring transparency and accountability in decision- making. The IPU plays an essential role as an interface between the work of the different United Nations bodies and national parliaments, Deiss said. The parliamentary hearings that have been held here since yesterday is, therefore, an important opportunity for bringing the two institutions even closer, he added. Theo-Ben Gurirab, the President of the IPU, said the hearings, whose theme was “Towards economic recovery: Rethinking development, retooling global governance” had looked into various issues, including reform of the international financial system and topics on the UN agenda. Separately, UNESCO is organizing an international conference about transboundary aquifers Dec.6-8 at organization headquarters in collaboration with the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Underground aquifers represent nearly 96 percent of the planet's freshwater, i.e. a volume 100 times higher than that of surface freshwater. In arid or semi-arid regions, they are often one of the few sources of water supply, if not the only source (100 percent in Saudi Arabia and in Malta, 95 percent in Tunisia). The UNESCO International Hydrological Program (IHP) published the first detailed map of transboundary aquifers in 2008. In 2010, more than 270 have been identified all over the world, of which 73 are on the American continent, 38 in Africa, 65 in Eastern Europe, 90 in Western Europe and 12 in Asia. The meeting entitled “Transboundary Aquifers: Challenges and New Directions” will be attended by scientists, lawyers, researchers, decision-makers, water management experts.
