缅北禁地

Distinguished Participants,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to join this important event and I thank the Government of Tajikistan and the other organizers for inviting me.

My Office advocates for three groups of vulnerable countries, namely the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and Small Island Developing States. (SIDS).

In every single group, you can find countries impacted by water stress and water-related disasters, and those impacts are becoming more frequent and more intense, mainly due to climate change.

Today, I would like to specifically focus on how these growing concerns are affecting the 32 landlocked developing countries (LLDCs).

Extreme weather events caused by climate change including droughts, heatwaves, worsening floods, and melting glaciers, are leading to water related disasters and water stress, as water become more scarce, more unpredictable, or contaminated in the LLDCs.

These negatively impact people’s access to water and sanitation, agricultural production, biodiversity and the achievement of the SDGs.

Over half of LLDCs’ land is classified as dryland and this makes them more vulnerable to drought.

According to a 2021 report by WMO, the number and duration of droughts globally have increased by 29 percent since 2000, as compared to the two previous decades. In Latin America, Paraguay experienced successive droughts in 2020 and 2021 resulting in significantly constrained agriculture output.

And we have seen, Ethiopia and Turkmenistan being hit by severe drought in 2021 that compounded the already challenging socio- economic situation due to the pandemic.

Lake Chad has shrunk in the last 50 years due to high temperatures and droughts, putting those dependent on that water source at risk of losing their primary water supply.

Climate change is accelerating the rate of glacial melt in Bhutan, Nepal, Tajikistan, and Bolivia.

The LLDCs have also experienced storms, cyclones, and flooding that have damaged critical infrastructure including for transport and water.

For example, tropical cyclone Idai that in 2019 damaged the infrastructure corridors connecting the Mozambique port of Beira with Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Yesterday I was in an LLDCs side event where Rwanda was sharing its experience of excessive floods that had destroyed many bridges and roads.

Climate change induced water disasters will have a major influence in the ability of the LLDCs to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and therefore need to be given special attention.

There is a clear and urgent case to improve resilience and disaster risk management.

LLDCs have limited capacities to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change as they are already hamstrung by structural vulnerabilities and deep resource constraints.

Yet they continue showing their commitment to the sustainability imperative. For example, at least 22 LLDCs reported to the Sendai Framework Monitor that they had national disaster risk reduction strategies in place1 by the end of 2021.

But more needs to be done.

Best practices need to be scaled up and solutions implemented.

I hope that the experiences that will be shared here today will help highlight successful approaches that will be useful for the sustainable development of LLDCs.

These experiences will also contribute to our reflections, as we move towards mid-term review of the Sendayi Framework and the 缅北禁地Water Conference both to be held in 2023; and the Third 缅北禁地Conference on LLDCs to be held in 2024.

Thank you.